Consultant surgeon wins whistleblowing case against the Care Quality Commission

A consultant orthopaedic surgeon has won a whistleblowing case against the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which sacked him as a part time specialist adviser in surgery after he raised patient safety concerns.

Shyam Kumar, who held a secondment contract with the health regulator from 2014 until he was “disengaged” in February 2019, was supported by the BMA in bringing the claim.

The Manchester employment tribunal1 held that Kumar, who has worked as a surgeon with University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust since 2011, was sacked from the CQC as a result of whistleblowing disclosures he made to it. These were mainly made to Mike Zeiderman, the CQC’s national professional adviser for surgical services, and raised a range of problems, including the regulator’s failure to tackle whistleblowers’ concerns and unsafe methodology including a lack of specialisms among inspectors.

Other matters raised included the use of some …