A health boss has been urged to resign after he said he was “not bothered” by hundreds of emails from concerned members of the public and declared his intention to ignore them.
Neil Findlay, the Labour MSP, said quitting was “the only credible course of action” for NHS Lothian chairman Brian Houston, after the release of previously confidential emails and amid a growing row over under-threat paediatric services.
Correspondence, obtained by Mr Findlay (below) under Freedom of Information laws, also appears to show Scottish Government officials interfering in the timing of a review that could signal the downgrade of a popular children’s ward at St John’s Hospital in Livingston, although this has been denied.
The review was later delayed by the health board, meaning the results will not be released until after the Holyrood elections, although NHS Lothian has insisted this was solely due to the availability of reviewers carrying out the work.
Mr Findlay, who has also called for the head of Jim Crombie, NHS Lothian chief officer of acute hospital services, dismissed the denials and said he believed senior officers at the health board had misled the public by deliberately delaying the review for political reasons.
He said Mr Houston had displayed “arrogant contempt” to constituents after his reaction to hundreds of emails, which Mr Findlay had organised through a standardised form on his website, was made public.
In an email to NHS Lothian chief executive Tim Davison, written after he discovered that emails arriving in his inbox had been instigated by Mr Findlay, Mr Houston wrote: “I’m not bothered, and I don’t think we should pay them any heed.”
In a statement, Mr Houston said “This is about safety and the health and wellbeing of children not politics. No decisions have been taken.
“We categorically refute suggestions that anyone has been deliberately misled by us. We commissioned an independent expert review – to ensure this.
“It has taken longer than we hoped to set up the review and we have been upfront about this at our Board meetings and the St John’s stakeholder group.” He said it was “unfortunate” that the review was now so close to the Holyrood poll.
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