In the Shadow of the Eighth by Peter Boylan

Author:Peter Boylan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241987285
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

13. Holles Street on the back foot

Once Kieran Mulvey was appointed to mediate between Holles Street and St Vincent’s in late May 2016, the co-location controversy went quiet. The NMH executive board delegated responsibility to a team led by Nicholas Kearns and Rhona Mahony that kept the board informed on the tone and broad outline of the negotiations. Like most members of the board, I was in the dark about the details of progress until a tranche of documents was circulated in early October ahead of a special executive meeting to be held four days later. When I read these, I was at first perplexed, and then aghast. It was clear that the NMH team was very much on the back foot and desperately trying to get some structure in the agreement that would preserve the clinical independence and autonomy of the hospital.

In response to draft agreements by Mulvey in July and early August, the NMH responded on 25 August: ‘Following detailed consideration by the Board of Governors [of the NMH] … we put forward … the matters which will require amendment in order for the Terms of Agreement to be accepted by the Governors.’

The NMH memorandum went on to say that Holles Street was willing to concede to a board of directors comprised of five SVHG appointees and four NMH directors, ‘provided the “reserved powers” are exercised by the four NMH Directors only’, and that the SVHG directors would not cast a vote in relation to the reserved powers. The so-called reserved powers were provisions intended to ensure clinical and operational independence.

The memorandum said that it was the ‘unanimous view’ of the NMH governors that ‘without either (a) a majority on the board or (b) a set of reserved functions for decision exclusively by the NMH appointed directors, the clinical independence and autonomy of the hospital cannot be preserved. The Governors cannot support the proposed relocation without firm either option (a) or failing that option (b) being inserted into the terms of agreement.’

The NMH memorandum was wrong on a number of levels. First, draft terms of agreement had never been put to the governors – or indeed to the executive. There had been no consideration of any kind by the governors. Why had the mediator been told that the governors had a unanimous view when nothing had been put to us? Second, I could not understand how the suggestion that the five SVHG directors would not be able to vote on the ‘reserved powers’ could ever work in real life on a board. I was both disturbed and increasingly angered.

There was worse to come. Included in the papers was a copy of a letter written by Nicholas Kearns and Rhona Mahony to Kieran Mulvey on 15 September. It was clear from reading it that in the space of three weeks further ground had been lost. Kearns and Mahony expressed their disappointment with the latest document from Kieran Mulvey, telling him that ‘[W]e feel strongly that the paper does not reflect our position, nor does it take account of progress made over the last few weeks.

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