Firstly I wrote some recent pieces criticising the
coverage of events by the Daily Mail and the Spectator. The chief reason for criticising their
coverage was that they told only one side of the story and ignored some key
aspects of it. Both the Mail and the
Spectator ignored that Mr Meirion Thomas’ arguments contained factual
inaccuracies, were not solidly based on evidence and were widely dismantled by
more reasoned objective work elsewhere by the likes of the RCS and Margaret
McCartney. It was also strange not to
mention the legal element to this affair when they were overtly criticising the
Royal Marsden’s actions. Therefore my
chief arguments were not about the rights and wrongs of Mr Meirion Thomas’s or
the Marsden’s actions, it was with the biased and stilted coverage by the Mail
and the Spectator.
Secondly to my limited understanding of the law in
this area, it is worth remembering throughout that I am not giving an opinion
about whether I think the law is morally right, or whether anyone’s actions are
morally right or wrong, I am just describing the legal aspects of this case
according to the limited facts we have available. It is worth remembering that we do not know
the exact terms of Mr Meirion Thomas’s contract, we do not know what has gone
on behind closed doors in discussions between him and his employer, and we do
not know what the exact outcome of these discussions have been. Let us just note what the Royal Marsden have
stated:
“Following two articles
that appeared in the Daily Mail on Thursday 20 November and in the Sunday
Mirror on Sunday 23 November by Professor Meirion Thomas, The Royal Marsden NHS
Foundation Trust would like to make it clear that Professor Thomas’ views are entirely
his own and in no way reflect the opinion of those working at The Royal
Marsden.
“Professor Thomas has
expressed his personal views about GPs and health tourism in the Daily Mail and
Sunday Mirror respectively without consulting staff at The Royal Marsden. We do
not share, condone or support the views he has expressed. It is important to
state that all individuals are entitled to express a view. They are not however entitled to speak on behalf of an organisation
without that organisation’s consent. Professor Thomas did not seek or
receive this organisation’s consent to either article.
“The Royal Marsden is
very proud of its good working relationships with our GP colleagues,
particularly through our GP engagement programme and referral process, and we
value their experience, knowledge and the excellent contribution they make
within the NHS.”
The
difficulty in interpreting any of this is that we are not privy to the full information;
hence some speculation is simply not sensible or wise. It is worth remembering the facts about what
was written in that the Mail article named the author as a ‘Royal Marsden
consultant surgeon’ and it was never stated this articles were his personal
view. Some would argue that it should be
assumed that the articles are his personal views, there is a great difficulty
with this argument as he does mention his specific employer and job title, he
talks about work relating to this specific employer (Lansley opinion) and he
may have used a photograph on Trust premises, and he does this without stating
that the articles are a personal view. I
will freely admit this is not black and white, but to suggest that it is clear
these articles are his personal view is absurd and in denial of the facts. The facts significantly close down the distance
between Mr Meirion Thomas’ personal opinion and his employer, the Royal
Marsden, and from the Marsden’s statement it appears that this is a significant
factor in their actions thus far. It is therefore likely that Mr Meirion Thomas' articles breached Trust media policy on more than one occasion and the terms of his contract with the Trust.
The
legal arguments about reputational harm are likely relevant. If employees have been judged to have caused significant
harm to their employer’s reputation by their actions then this would be another
avenue by which the Royal Marsden may choose to act. There is certainly a reasonable case for
arguing that Mr Meirion Thomas’ articles causes reputational harm given their
disparaging nature. Certainly Mr Meirion
Thomas does not meet the legal definition of a whisteblower and would not have
a credible case if he used a public interest defence to justify his articles. However from what has been stated it appears
likely that the Marsden felt Mr Meirion Thomas had breached his contract of
employment by ‘speaking on behalf of an organisation without that organisation’s
consent’. It remains unknown which exact
details in the articles led the Marsden to this opinion regarding speaking ‘on
behalf’ of an organisation. We also do not know precisely what action has been
taken by the Royal Marsden, the talk of confidentiality or ‘gagging’ clauses
may or may not be true.
In
purely legal terms given the available information it appears that the Royal
Marsden have acted properly and to suggest otherwise would appear to be rather
evidence free. It is also worth noting
that I have not yet given my opinion on whether I think the Marsden’s actions
are morally right or the most effective course of action, this has not been my
motive, I am simply trying to give my readers as much objective information as
possible with which to make up their own minds.
Perhaps I shall do this at some point, but at the moment I do not want
to confuse these simple arguments, I want more information before coming to any
definitive moral judgements on this complex affair. If people have an issue with the Marsden’s
actions then they should either point to specific legal arguments or direct
their arguments towards the legal system, and not the Royal Marsden.
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