Jacob Williams https://jacobwilliams.com

Over three months since the news was broken on this website, the threat of legal action still hangs over Hywel Dda Community Health Council’s Chairman Tony Wales and Vice-Chair Dr. Gabrielle Heathcote.

In March of this year, I revealed that Opinion Research Services (ORS) – the specialist research company enlisted by Hywel Dda Health Board to conduct its listening and evaluation exercise – sent a solicitors’ letter to the Chair and Vice-Chair of the CHC. It claimed that some of the comments the CHC made in its document referring the Health Board’s plans for future healthcare to the Health Minister, were libellous, and “utterly unacceptable.”

The letter, sent on behalf of ORS by Cardiff-based top law firm, Morgan La Roche, alleged that the CHC’s referral document contained “seriously false assertions about the conduct of the consultations,” and that “ORS’s reputation has been unjustly injured.”

Among other demands, the letter required from Mr. Wales and Dr. Heathcote the retraction of the allegedly defamatory statements, a full and unreserved apology, and for the payment of ORS’s legal costs, and stated that if the requirements were not met, “the CHC ought to be in no doubt whatsoever that ORS will commence legal proceedings.”

Shortly after breaking the news I noticed that the CHC revised its referral document, and republished a second version with an additional statement explaining that “paragraphs 13 and 14” had been “amended” from the original document, “Following representations on behalf of Opinion Research Services Limited.”

Some may have taken this edit to mean that the matter had been underlined, but a mole now tells me that the threat of legal action is still looming over Mr. Wales and Dr. Heathcote, who both signed-off the original document, and that the matter is “far from being resolved.”

I’m told that legal letters, one after another, have been flung back-and-fore between the CHC and ORS “like a rubber ball” costing thousands of pounds in solicitors’ fees to date, and it is understood that should legal action be taken by ORS, they intend to pursue Mr. Wales and Dr. Heathcote as Chair and Vice-Chair, rather than the CHC as a corporate entity which is made up of its many other volunteer members from across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.

This has raised discussion over the legal indemnity that may be provided to Mr. Wales and Dr. Heathcote should the matter continue indefinitely without resolution, or ultimately involve court proceedings. The week before last a question on the topic was tabled in the Welsh Assembly to the Health Minister, Mark Drakeford AM, by Dr. Heathcote’s directly-elected Assembly Member. (Scroll to 13.57 at the Assembly’s record of proceedings.)

On 19th June, Elin Jones, AM for Ceredigion, asked the Health Minister if he agreed with her that “…for one party to resort to the threat of legal action is no way to promote public confidence in a health consultation?” and added “Will you provide confirmation to me and my constituent that the Welsh Government will stand ready to support any legal costs incurred by individual CHC members in matters such as this?”

The minister’s response revealed that he had already been actively aware of the matter, by appointing Professor Marcus Longley, a Director of the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care and who had been ‘instrumental’ in helping the CHC through the consultation process, to act as a ‘broker’ between the CHC and ORS in this dispute, and that he was ‘cautiously optimistic’ that an agreement could be reached between the two parties.

As for the coverage of legal costs, the minister said he had received “definitive legal advice on the legal indemnity that is available for CHC members,” and that he would set out the ‘proper legal position’ in writing to Mrs. Jones “…so that there is no room for ambiguity that there might be in an oral answer.”

Angela Burns, AM for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire told the minister that she represented “the other person who is being pursued by ORS,” and highlighted the potential consequences facing Mr. Wales and Dr. Heathcote, by saying:

“They have been told that a very limited indemnity is available to them now and, once that has been spent, they are going to have to meet the fees themselves. They have been told that they could lose their houses and their entire livelihoods over this.”

Mrs. Burns expressed her fear that a consequence of this episode could be: “that people no longer wish to serve their communities, their villages and their towns by joining any organisation, because we live in a very litigious world,” and asked the minister what can be done to “better protect people in the future.”

The minister said that he agreed ‘entirely’ with the general point “that it is very important that people who undertake duties on behalf of the public are able to do so freely and would wish to do so in the future,” and stated that the correspondence he intended sending to Mrs. Jones, setting out the legal position, would be copied to Mrs. Burns that she will be ‘able to see and use.’

I have not yet come by the contents of the Health Minister’s letter, but a source who has read it tells me that, whilst it reaffirms the information already known by CHC members about their existing limited indemnity, it does not elaborate further on whether the indemnity can be or will be extended.

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❏I understand that SOSPPAN‘s legal challenge to the Health Board’s proposals to downgrade A&E services at Llanelli’s Prince Philip Hospital have been dealt a blow.

Papers were filed with the High Court by the Llanelli-based action group in May, applying for the decision to be quashed on the basis that Hywel Dda Health Board’s consultation process leading to the decision was flawed.

The High Court has refused the application for a Judicial Review but SOSPPAN intends to call for the decision to be reconsidered in open court. The date for this hearing was set last week for 19th July.

If SOSPPAN is successful at the hearing and the appeal is upheld, the Judicial Review process will be allowed to take place. Given that the key arguments from SOSPPAN will relate to the Health Board’s consultation process, there could be many more interesting twists to come in this long-running saga.