A doctor whose wrongful dismissal was described as “shameful” by a tribunal will still not be able to return to his old job after his former employers refused to reinstate him.

A tribunal in Croydon accepted an order submitted by both parties, on Tuesday, September 30, that awarded cardiologist Dr Robin Roberts, basic costs, compensation and wrongful dismissal damages.

However, Kingston Hospital is refusing to give him his job back, despite a petition started by Teddington resident Joan Ramsey and a court order demanding he be reinstated.

The trust also rubbed further salt in Dr Roberts’ wounds by failing to attend the judgement saying it wanted to “save taxpayers’ money”.

Dr Roberts said: “They have spent so much money on this in the last year that [to say now that they are concerned about saving money] is a nonsense.

“The damage to my reputation and family life has been incalculable and it is has been painful for our children.

“We have had to move out of our house and they have had to change schools.

“I have always maintained that I did nothing wrong.

“If they had let me go back to work I could have earned money for them.

“At the end of the day I have no job, I have been out of work for two years.”

Dr Roberts worked at St Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton and was an NHS specialist for nine years when he was sacked for “fraud” in 2006.

The following January he had his appeal rejected by the trust.

Dr Roberts, who is married to Lesley, an NHS doctor, and has eight children, added: “During the appeal in January 2007 Alan Pierce, the director of Kingston Hospital said he had no interest in the outcome of the patient.

“He was only interested in the process by which they get in and out of hospital.

“I hope this case will highlight the faults in our practices.”

Full details of the award, which is expected to be around £100,000 will be released next week.

Dr Roberts said: “Now that this is over I am looking forward to getting back into the NHS.”


What the hospital said
In a statement released by Kingston Hospital Trust Dr Colin Todd, medical director at Kingston Hospital, said: “Dr Roberts was dismissed by the trust because he misused NHS resources by admitting a private patient, who he was treating at his private clinic in Wimbledon, to an NHS bed in Kingston Hospital for over two weeks without permission.

“The trust believes that by treating this patient privately while they were booked into an NHS bed at Kingston Hospital, Dr Roberts misused NHS resources, which are for use by NHS patients, and failed, in his duty as a trust employee.

“The trust followed the correct disciplinary procedure which resulted in the panel’s unanimous decision that Dr Roberts should be dismissed.

“The trust totally refutes the suggestion that it could have saved money by resolving the matter earlier.

“An employment tribunal takes time and all the procedures were followed to the letter. We have been actively seeking to resolve this matter for almost a year. A settlement was reached between the trust and Dr Roberts on Tuesday, September 30.

“However, it is unfortunate that Dr Roberts did not accept the financial settlement when it was first offered to him two months ago.”


What the tribunal report said
We have found this case disturbing. The respondants [Kingston Hospital NHS Trust] have contrived to subject the claimant [Dr Roberts] to grossly unjust treatment.

Without explanation they have flown in the face of two elementary truths: first, that, before charging someone with breaking a rule, it is necessary to take the precation of ascertaining whether the rule exists; secondly, that it is simply improper to charge anyone, and in particular a professional person, with fraud unless there are cogent grounds.

So complete have been the respondents’ disregard for these fundamental principles of fairness and so apparently deliberate and calculated the unfairness of the entire disciplinary process, that we feel unable to exclude the possiblity that the claimant may have been the victim of something more reprehensible than crass incompetence.

As for the claimant, our findings and conclusions can speak for themselves, but he is entitled to have it expressly recorded that in our judgement the respondents’ attack upon his integrity was not merely unjustified, but shameful.