MPs representing Devon & Cornwall constituencies attended a meeting with the leaders of the South Western Ambulance Service Trust in the House of Commons on 27 February 2019.
The Chief Executive of the Trust (Ken Wenman) Chairman (Tony Fox) & Executive Director of People and Culture (Amy Beet) were asked to attend the meeting by Geoffrey Cox QC, Member of Parliament for Torridge & West Devon, who was supported by 11 cross party MPs representing seats throughout Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Exeter.
During the meeting the MPs probed senior management on their response to the perceived culture of bullying in the workplace, the sufficiency of the management’s response to it and its plan of action for tackling what Professor Duncan Lewis called ‘a culture of incivility’ at the Trust.
The Trust agreed to meet with individual MPs who wanted to raise specific cases and to return again before the Parliamentary summer recess for a review of the progress it had made in tackling the serious issues local residents and former employees had raised.
In December 2018, Geoffrey Cox QC MP invited local residents who were former employees of the Trust to meet their MPs in the House of Commons. The residents had shared their experiences of working at the Trust and made serious allegations about the workplace culture at the Ambulance Service, particularly relating to incidents of bullying, discrimination and sexualised behaviour.
