Chair resigns days after consultants declare ‘no confidence’
The chair of Moorfields Eye Hospital Foundation Trust has resigned days after consultants expressed no confidence in her and the board, making a series of serious allegations against the hospital’s senior leadership team.
In a resignation statement today, Laura Wade-Gery said it had been a “privilege” to chair the trust and she was “proud” of the work staff had done during her tenure, but made no reference to a letter senior consultants wrote to the board last week, claiming there was a culture of bullying at the organisation.
The statement, headed “important board update”, said: “Laura will leave her role in the coming weeks. The membership council and the board will work to ensure an effective transition.”
Ms Wade-Gery said in the statement: “I am particularly proud of the work done by our people to build new digital pathways, which now mean that patients in our communities can have quick access to all the incredible expertise of our world-renowned clinicians…
“For that next phase, I have decided that a new chair will be best placed to lead the Moorfields’ board in capturing the opportunities ahead, as well as in addressing the areas where improvement is needed.”
Ms Wade-Gery — a former NHS England non-executive director — also thanked all staff at the hospital for their “hard work” and vowed to oversee a “smooth handover” in the coming weeks as the Membership Council works to find a replacement.
The trust’s interim CEO Peter Ridley said: “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Laura for her hard work and dedication. In her time as chair, she has been an advocate for innovation for the benefit of patients, making sure everything we do is centred around delivering exceptional care and supporting opportunities to drive forward innovation and research breakthroughs with our partners.”
Senior medics at the hospital sent the letter, obtained by HSJ, to the organisation’s governors on 26 February, expressing no confidence in Ms Wade-Gery and the board.
Allegations in the letter include that there was a bullying culture at the organisation, including “coercive behaviour” by the trust’s chair; the trust’s reputation as a research institution was being damaged; and there was “a lack of corporate integrity”.
The letter, from consultants’ committee chair Hari Jayaram, said more than half of the senior doctors — more than 80 consultants — at the trust had contacted him to “voice a lack of confidence in the organisation by the current chair and board”.
It also said morale among these senior doctors was “at a significant nadir, which most colleagues do not ever recall experiencing in their consultant careers”, and that senior staff have lost confidence in the trust’s Freedom to Speak Up process.
Responding to the claims, the trust said last week: “Yesterday, Moorfields received a letter from our consultant body which outlines concerns that some of our consultants have. We are in the process of actively listening to these concerns. We recognise that the consultant body is integral to the success and the future of Moorfields, that they provide exceptional care for our patients every day, and we welcome their important views.
“The board is fully committed to building a strong and valuable relationship with our consultant body, and we are in the process of actively listening to concerns, beginning an open and transparent dialogue, and agreeing and commencing a plan to move forward.
“The board is committed to our trust values of equity, excellence, and kindness. We continue to have good relationships with our research partners, in particular, UCL, and we are focused on ensuring the trust offers outstanding care to our patients and is set up to continue to do this into the future.”
Corrected at 3.44pm on 4 March, we had previously incorrectly identified an interim chair.