A doctor quit his place on the board of NHS Tayside last week blaming in part a breakdown in relations with its chair over a recent breast cancer treatment controversy.
Dr Norman Pratt, a non-executive member of the board and up until last week the head of its area clinical forum, listed a number of complaints as his reasons for quitting his post at a hybrid meeting held last Friday.
Dr Pratt claimed the forum had not received enough support to carry out its core functions and suggested chairs of other advisory committees had been expected to contribute to its work without any added assistance.
“I think we need to have committees set up to succeed not fail and for that they need to be actively supported,” he said.
Dr Pratt then said he felt he was excluded from a recent decision to review the forum’s advisory structure and that he was tasked to lead it at the wrong time under difficult circumstances due to COVID-19.
“The plain fact is I was not consulted about the review, it was imposed on me and on the committee,” he said.
“We were in level five special measures and no sooner had we come out of that we were hit by Covid.
“I did not consider it the right time for the review.”
Dr Pratt then said he had been unable to agree with colleagues, including the chair of the board, Lorna Birse-Stewart, over the findings of a recent external review of its breast cancer treatment service.
NHS Tayside said at the time the controversy kicked off around three years ago that lower doses were given to women to reduce side effects but the review found the reduction “may have led to the small but significant relative increased risk of recurrence in a cohort of women in NHS Tayside”.
The board says it has since brought the amount of drugs it gives to patients in line with the rest of the country but Dr Pratt appeared to suggest at Friday’s meeting he believed staff were right to give lower amounts to patients in some cases.
“I’ve just not been able to see eye to eye with the organisation about this,” he said. “Clearly that put me at odds with the chair, colleagues and the Scottish Government.
“We weren’t underdosing, the rest were overdosing. Yet I’ve been unable convince colleagues of that and it has led to a permanent breakdown of relations with the chair.”
Dr Pratt summed up: “Taking all things together I’ve decided that I need to resign now.
“It’s been a privilege working in Tayside but clearly it’s time for me to go.”
An NHS Tayside spokesperson commented after the meeting: “Dr Pratt was a member of the board in 2019 when members considered the external reviews relating to variation in breast cancer treatment in Tayside which had been commissioned by Scotland’s chief medical officer.
“The board accepted the findings and recommendations of these independent reviews in full, acting immediately to ensure all breast cancer patients in Tayside are offered the same chemotherapy treatment as they would receive in the other cancer centres in Scotland.”
*In an earlier version of this story we stated: "The review was commissioned after it emerged patients had been given lower doses of chemotherapy drugs than patients were receiving in other health board areas in Scotland".
We would like point out that doses of chemotherapy fluctuate between cases and patients across the country and there is no evidence to suggest that NHS Tayside was routinely using lower doses in comparison to other health boards.
We are happy to clarify this.
