David Cameron is coming under fresh pressure to force out NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson this afternoon. The health boss has had to apologise to the Public Accounts Committee, after his evidence yesterday was directly contradicted by whistleblower Gary Walker’s testimony to the Health Select Committee today.
Nicholson told the PAC that Walker ‘didn’t identify himself as a whistleblower at that moment in time, nor did he raise with me any issues of patient safety’. But today Walker produced a letter which said ‘I assume the Department of Health has a policy on whistleblowing and would therefore like this letter to be considered in that context’.
Nicholson’s letter of clarification to PAC chair Margaret Hodge, sent this afternoon, said: ‘I have now had the opportunity to review the correspondence and would like to confirm that when Gary Walker wrote to me in July 2009 he did indeed ask to be considered as a whistleblower.’
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