A HOSPITAL director has been suspended while his involvement in an 'irregular' payoff deal to a 'musketeer' midwife is investigated.

Roger Wilson, formally a HR director at the trust in charge of Furness General Hospital, was said to have overseen an exit contract to overpay maternity risk manager Janette Parkinson by thousands of pounds when she agreed to leave in 2012.

The compromise agreement, signed by Mr Wilson, was also said to have issued an assurance to Ms Parkinson she would face no internal hearing over alleged poor performance while working at the Barrow hospital unit.

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This week, Mr Wilson, who is currently the HR director at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has been suspended from his job while the matter is looked into further.

A spokesman for Warrington and Halton trust described the suspension as a 'neutral act' while an internal investigation was undertaken.

The spokesman added: “Roger Wilson is currently suspended, as a neutral act, from his role as director of human resources and organisation development at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

“As investigatory processes are still under way, it is inappropriate for us to provide any further comment at this time.”

Ms Parkinson was among a number of midwives criticised within the Morecambe Bay Investigation Report published by Dr Bill Kirkup in 2015.

It found standards of care and medical practice on the maternity unit at FGH were low, leading to the avoidable deaths of one mother and 11 babies over a nine-year period.

Ms Parkinson was found to have provided model answers to colleagues ahead of an inquest into the death of Dalton baby Joshua Titcombe.

But documents unearthed last year during an internal investigation into the death of baby Joshua revealed she went on to be 'significantly overpaid' by around 14 months as part of her exit agreement.

It also allowed her to pocket payment for 480 hours of 'unchallenged' work.

UHMBT chief executive, Jackie Daniel, said last year she believed the agreement may have been put into place as a 'knee-jerk' reaction to criticism of maternity services made at the time.

"It is irregular in terms of the additional money paid and very irregular in terms of no governance process being followed," Mrs Daniel said.

"I am desperately disappointed that we have got a midwife here who was not investigated by the trust and that was a massive missed opportunity."

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