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£1.4m settlement at Letby trust… and the question nobody’s asking

ended 18. January 2026

An NHS trust has agreed a £1.4m settlement with its former CEO, Dr Susan Gilby, after an employment tribunal found she was forced out following a bullying grievance and that a sham case was built against her.

Now zoom in on the people who still have to turn up tomorrow morning and keep the place running.

If you are a nurse, porter, receptionist, junior doctor, ward manager, or anyone on the ground, you are probably thinking: we are being told budgets are tight, recruitment is hard, rotas are stretched, and yet millions can be found when leadership behaviour goes wrong. Even if the payout is justified, it is hard not to feel angry. It breeds cynicism and that quiet decision to stop speaking up because it looks like the only people who really “win” are the lawyers.

On the pay point, NHS pay for most staff is set nationally, not by individual trusts, so this is unlikely to have directly changed whether a pay award was 1% or 2%. But staff do not live inside a spreadsheet. They live inside the reality of vacancies not being backfilled, training being squeezed, and leaders saying “there’s no budget” while big cheques get written for avoidable mess.

And here’s the governance bit that matters: who actually makes the commercial call to fight rather than settle?

In most organisations, that decision is driven by a mix of the Chair and board, the Chief Executive, and the executive team, with lawyers advising in the background. In an NHS foundation trust, the CEO is also the Accounting Officer, which means they carry formal responsibility for how public money is used. That is meant to be based on value for money, not pride, politics, or protecting reputations. The board also has duties around oversight and governance, so if a case runs on and costs spiral, it is fair to ask who challenged the strategy, who signed off on the spend, and why nobody hit pause earlier.

The uncomfortable truth is that governance can fail fastest when the concerns sit at the top. If senior people control the narrative and the process, it can look tidy internally until a tribunal forces disclosure and the full story comes out.

Questions 

  • Who should be accountable for the decision to litigate versus settle when public money is on the line?
  • Should public bodies have stricter sign-off for big legal spend, similar to the checks charities face?
  • If you worked at this trust, how would this affect your trust in leadership?
  • What does this do to recruitment when candidates read it and think “that place sounds toxic”?
  • Do cases like this encourage people to speak up, or warn them to keep their heads down?
  • If you could redirect that money to frontline support, what would you spend it on?

Sources:

BBC: Letby trust pays £1.4m damages to ex CEO (15 Jan 2026)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czj00pp70xvo 

GOV.UK: NHS foundation trusts, accounting officer responsibilities

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-foundation-trusts-accounting-officers-responsibilities 

HM Treasury: Managing Public Money (value for money principles for public spending)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-public-money 

NHS Employers: How pay is set in the NHS

https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/how-pay-set-nhs 

House of Commons Library: NHS pay and pensions (background)

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10374/ 

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
We’re told the NHS is skint. Vacancies stay open. Rotas are held together with goodwill and overtime. Then this story lands and suddenly £1.4m turns up, with reports the total bill could be closer to £3m once legal costs are added. I’m not saying Dr Gilby didn’t deserve justice. If a tribunal says it was a sham, it was a sham. Pay what’s owed. But here’s the bit that really grates: who decided to fight this instead of settling early and stopping the costs from spiralling? Who looked at public money and thought this was a sensible commercial call? Because staff won’t read this and think “strong leadership”. They’ll think “there’s always money for the mess, never money for the people doing the work”. If you worked there, how would this land with you? And if you ran a business, would you let pride burn your budget?
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
This £1.4m payout is the ultimate insult to every nurse holding the NHS together with sticky tape and goodwill.

I’ve spent over a decade unpicking corporate mess, and 'Project Countess' is the worst kind of rot. We have a Trust pleading poverty on the wards, yet finding the time and budget to run a 'sham' operation to oust a whistleblower.

The governance failure here is staggering. In the private sector, if executives burned £1.4m of shareholder money on a personal vendetta, and deleted evidence to cover it up, they’d be walked out of the building. In the NHS, the taxpayer picks up the tab while the frontline is told there’s no budget for basic resources.

The real tragedy isn't just the money; it’s the message it sends to staff. Why should they burn themselves out to save pennies when the board is torching millions on ego battles?

Until leaders face personal financial accountability for treating public funds like monopoly money, this cycle of toxicity and waste will never end.