Public Board of Directors papers 27.01.22

Executive. The Chief Academic Officer, R+I Director and senior consultants were also involved in providing advice and oversight. The audit by Andrew Hughes identified the following issues: • The two aspects of the project (Genomic testing and data analysis) did have specific clinical leadership arrangements. • The project was complex and greater clarity about the objectives and reporting arrangements would have been helpful in communications. • There could have been better communication about the exploratory nature of the discussions and the deep understanding within the executive team of the need to resolve some complex issues. • As the “Rapid Review” report acknowledges there was clearly significant medical involvement and leadership from the start. • When those medical leaders developed concerns and escalated them to the Executive Team action was taken to pause and reassess. In this section of the report the “Rapid Review” review team reiterates public allegations made by a former employee about bribery and embezzlement by named members of the Executive Team. These allegations were referred to the counter-fraud service by the Director of Finance, but no evidence was produced to allow the allegations to be investigated. The person making these allegations has repeated them using social media but has not provided the review team, NHS Regional Office or the counter fraud service with any evidence. In these circumstances the review report should either have made no mention of these allegations or made a much clearer statement. The Regional Office has confirmed that there is no evidence for these allegations whatsoever. In so far as the recommendations are concerned: • This document was commissioned by the Trust as part of its own review of the project and was therefore openly presented by the author to the Management Board and Medical Staff Committee together with a full action plan that was approved. It was considered by the BoD on 25 th March 2021. • The suggestions made by the Review Team are noted and appear to draw directly from the Andrew Hughes report and are built into the action plan developed in March 2021 • In particular The Management Board approved a set of principles to guide future external collaborations and partnerships in November 2020. This includes a strategic framework for governance and decision making and includes best practice public sector procurement guidance, ABPI policy and industry standard delivery (PPM) methodology and covers the issues raised by the “Rapid Review” report in December 2021 • The Trust’s Audit Committee initiated such an audit of procurement practice when the allegations were first made but was instructed by the Regional Medical Officer to cancel this audit as the matter was to be built into the Rapid Review. It is therefore surprising that the Review’s recommendation is to undertake the audit which the Trust was instructed to cancel. An audit of procurement practice is being planned for the 2022/23 internal Audit Plan. • A routine review of the Conflicts of Interest Policy, which includes gifts and hospitality and registration of interests, is undertaken every 3 years as part of the internal audit cycle. This was undertaken in 2021 by MIAA and has been presented to Audit Committee and the actions included in the audit tracker. Terms of Reference 5 - The appropriateness of recruitment decisions within the R+I Division during this period The “Rapid Review” team report confirms that although there were necessary pragmatic responses to the COVID pandemic emergency there were no evidence of inappropriate HR practices within the R+I Division. The pragmatic responses included redeployment of R+I staff to support the bio security arrangements for the site and acting up arrangements to ensure continuity of leadership.

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