No free speech for senior British doctor

A leading cancer surgeon claims he has been forced out of his job at a renowned hospital for daring to criticise the NHS.

Joseph Meirion Thomas wrote a series of articles raising concerns about GPs, the scale of health tourism and his own treatment by senior management.

He has now been made to quit the Royal Marsden Hospital in London after being told he brought the institution into ‘disrepute’.

Mr Thomas, 69, suspects his exit was triggered by one particular article which warned that GPs do not even provide a ‘remotely personal’ service, work out of hours or see the same patient more than once.

The piece, published in the Daily Mail in November, triggered a backlash with doctors condemning him on Twitter as ‘ignorant, unprofessional and misinformed’.

Mr Thomas claims the hospital chief executive was told that GPs would stop referring their patients unless action was taken against him. The surgeon says he was asked to sign a document pledging not to write any more articles without permission and was subsequently made to leave at the end of March.

Efforts to negotiate a contract enabling him to stay on part-time to finish a research project were rejected.

Although he tried to launch a claim for bullying and harassment against bosses, Mr Thomas has just learned it has been thrown out.

Hospital bosses deny trying to ‘silence’ the surgeon and say his articles were ‘personal views’ which were not ‘evidence-based’.

It comes months after the Government unveiled sweeping measures to protect whistleblowers and encourage staff to speak freely.

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I initially thought his claims had to be exaggerated but the fury that they aroused suggests that he hit on an uncomfortable truth.