Top healthcare boss travelled to more than a DOZEN conferences abroad while NHS struggles
ONE of Scotland’s top healthcare bosses is under fire after he attended more than a dozen foreign conferences in just three years. Professor Jason Leitch is the SNP Government’s National Clinical Director of Healthcare Quality and Strategy, second only to NHS chief executive Paul Gray in the St Andrew’s House pecking order.
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His responsibilities include patient support and public involvement, NHS planning, reducing health inequalities, delivering effective pharmaceutical services, supporting dentistry and implementing quality improvement across the health service and the entire public sector.
Despite this hugely demanding role, Prof Leitch has attended at least 13 overseas medical conferences since his promotion in 2015.
Most were organised by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), the US private sector giant which has become instrumental in running the NHS in Scotland in recent years.
In 2015 he attended IHI conferences in London, Hong Kong and Orlando, with his £777 hotel costs for the latter event being picked up by the Scottish Government courtesy of the taxpayer.
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The next year he jetted overseas for IHI events in Gothenburg, Singapore, Jönköping in Sweden and Orlando (again), with the taxpayer paying £305 for his flights and hotel in Jönköping and £405 for his hotel in Florida.
Other 2016 events saw him attend the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Convention in Brisbane, a patient safety conference in Mexico City, and join the Danish health minister for a “celebration” of nursing home safety in Denmark.
Prof Leitch was at the IHI HQ in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in January last year for an “update on quality improvement”, followed by IHI conferences in Doha and Dublin.
Further 2017 trips included Kuwait in March to “share NHS Scotland’s quality story” and Denmark again in October.
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He has also attended a number of IHI events in the UK, including one in London where his £747 hotel costs were met by the Scottish Government.
The schedule was compiled by campaigners from the Action for a Safe and Accountable People’s NHS (ASAP-NHS) campaign, using Freedom of Information requests and a range of publicly available sources.
Many of the hotel and flight costs have not been published so it is not known whether the taxpayer picked up the bill or if IHI and other organisers paid for him to attend the events.
ASAP-NHS founder member Roger Livermore, a top healthcare regulator, said: “Scotland needs a competent clinical director who addresses the very real problems here at home, not a globetrotter who has no idea of what is happening in Scotland.”
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One NHS doctor who has practised in Scotland for over 20 years added: “I find it concerning that Scotland’s national clinical director appears to be so busy promoting Scotland’s NHS to the world that he is left with less time to be part of it.
“The data within this report would also seem to indicate the influence on Scotland’s NHS, at a high government level, of an American ‘not-for-profit’ organisation, an influence which is something the public are unlikely to be aware of.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Professor Jason Leitch’s work with the non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement as a representative of NHS Scotland has led to a hugely successful partnership that has brought about globally-recognised improvements in patient safety, including 20,000 saved lives, and unprecedented reductions in healthcare associated infections.”
