NHS surgeon sacked after blowing the whistle on shocking patient safety concerns now works as an Uber driver
A SENIOR heart surgeon sacked after he claims he blew the whistle on patient safety concerns is now working as an Uber driver.
Peter O'Keefe was suspended for more than three years before his dismissal from the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, after colleagues accused him of bullying.
Peter, 52, who was a consultant cardiac surgeon, was dismissed after health workers accused him of bullying and harassing them.
But he claimed he was a "whistle-blower" exposing faults at the hospital.
An employment tribunal case was due to start this month but was called off after Cardiff & Vale University Health Board reached a settlement agreement of £50,000 with him.
Mr O'Keefe had sought claims in excess of £3.35 million, according to a spokesman for the Health Board.
“It’s a bittersweet outcome for me," Mr O'Keefe said.
“It’s an enormous relief not to have the pressure on me anymore, but this has gone on so long and I can’t go back to medicine.
“I’ve tried to get work, but I’m the wrong side of 50.
“I came to the conclusion that the best thing was to give myself a job, so I’ve become an Uber driver, and I’m loving it.”
The highly rated consultant stopped working in 2012 during the bitter row with hospital bosses.
He was paid £95,000 gardening leave for three years until he was sacked.
When Mr O’Keefe was dismissed in 2015, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board issued a statement.
It read: “After considering the findings made by an independent inquiry panel and hearing evidence and submissions in mitigation, the board of the health board found that Mr O’Keefe’s standards of behaviour in the workplace constitutes gross misconduct within the health board’s disciplinary rules.”
After his dismissal Mr O’Keefe claimed he was sacked for lifting the lid on unsafe hospital care.
He said: “The eventual total bill, paid let's not forget by the taxpayer, is a matter of speculation but I would be amazed if there was any change out of £1m.
“That's quite a bill, a lot of public money.
“I can no longer work as a doctor, which is the only work I have known since I was 22.
“When I was working I was a resilient, dynamic, mentally agile individual undertaking a demanding job, but was doing what I had always wanted to do.
“I was diagnosed with anxiety straight after being suspended. I haven't slept properly ever since."
He claims his sacking was motivated by “revenge” after he raised concerns about care given to a patient who was left in a “vegetative state” following surgery.
The male patient was believed to have become disconnected from a ventilator for more than 10 minutes, starving his brain of oxygen.
Mr O'Keefe said that incident, along with others, caused him to call into question the way care was delivered by staff at his hospital.
He claims there was “no coincidence” he was then suspended from work in April 2012, after being told 40 colleagues had complained his “bullying” was putting patients at risk.
He first brought his claims of unfair dismissal to a tribunal at Cardiff Magistrates Court in June last year.
A spokesman for Cardiff & Vale University Health Board said: "Mr O’Keefe was dismissed for gross misconduct in August 2015.
"An independent appeal subsequently found that Mr O'Keefe's behaviour amounted to gross misconduct and that dismissal was the appropriate sanction.
"The settlement which has now been reached in the Tribunal proceedings is on the express basis that the Health Board has not admitted any liability in respect of any of Mr O'Keefe's claims.
"Instead, the settlement was reached on the basis of the saving to the Health Board of both legal costs and clinical/management time which would otherwise have been incurred during the Employment Tribunal hearing."
They said the amount settled for was "very substantially less" that what Mr O'Keefe had asked for.
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