What is he actually accused of? The NHS Consultant contract gives them the right to speak out and to publish. Only if what he said was defamatory, or breached patient confidentiality, would he be in breach of contract.

That said, there's a lot of heavy-handed bullying about from managers in the health sector IME.

   This is truly appalling. Everyone who uses or works for the NHS should support Milton Pena.

   What is wrong with the world when disciplinary action is taken against someone for telling the truth? Shame on y ou Tameside Hospital - you should be standing BY your staff not AGAINST them. It is this attitude that makes me glad I no longer live in the UK.

   What is the quality of the Tameside NHS Acute Trust? the front page of the Tameside Advertiser of May 5th illustrates how some of the surgical staff in this hospital feel about the Trust. It has the second highest mortality figures in the country ..simply translated means that you have the highest chance of death from any procedure in this hospital of all the hospitals in the North West.

The Chief Executive will no doubt quote this set of audit figures or that ..hospital executives have learned to massage the data as skillfully as their counterparts in industry.

Services are inevitably centralised in the modern NHS and people have to travel to access them either by private transport or the ambulance services..everyone recognises this todayb&it serves to give patients access to the best professional expertise that is available in the region.It happens already in Tameside or if not, then it certainly should.

What is the recruitment situation in Tameside Secondary Care?b&..the better people ,be they doctors or nurses, DON'T want to work at Tameside General hospitalb&.it has a bad reputation and they don't want Tameside on their CVs.

Tameside Acute NHS Trust is now a isolated outpost of mediocre medical and surgical practice in Greater Manchester.it should be amalgamated into a super-trust as soon as possible.The Central Manchester Teaching Hospitals Trust ( Manchester Royal Infirmary) is the ideal candidate though I have no doubt that they would need considerable financial help to take over and raise standards in Tameside Acute NHS Trust.

Complacency on the part of the three Tameside MPs cannot go onb&.they should talk confidentially to medical and nursing professionals in both primary and secondary care in Tameside and other trusts nearby such as Oldham Royal.They should ask for confidential appraisals from the Professorial Departments for Anaesthetics ,Surgery and Medecine at Manchester University to see whether they are happy to include Tameside General in the training rotations for the Specialist Registrars.My guess is that there is current and longstanding profound disquiet about this Trust amongst those who set the professional medical and nursing standards for the North West Region.

One day this situation is going to blow up in the faces of the local politicos,Councillors and MPs, and once more Tameside will be embroiled in a medical scandal just as profound as Dr Fred Shipman's activities" carried on even when he was chairman of the local Family Practitioner Committee responsible for disciplining other local GPs!

There is an active information grapevine in the medical and allied professions that carries details of practitoners' reputations that would never go down on paper.This means that many areas recognised to maintain high standards will not employ individuals that are considered suspect.They can pick and choose.Other less fortunate areas often do not enjoy that privilege and have to take whomsoever they can get.Such areas become refuges for the incompetent and the uncaring.One hopes that Tameside has not become just such an area.Do we know?

I ask the question again b&..how many of the local General Practitioners would choose to have major surgery performed on them or theirs in Tameside General? ..would they be confident in the quality of anesthetic care the would receive?Given the choice, how many of the GPs would ask their own GP to refer them to a hospital or consultant outside the area?

How many of the wealthier residents in Tameside take comfort from their private health insurance that insulates them from the ministrations of Tameside Acute NHS Trust?

The people of Tameside deserve better not just from the healthcare services of the Tameside area but from their elected political leaders also.Second or third best is just not good enough!