The chair of West Suffolk hospital trust has resigned over a whistleblowing scandal exposed by the Guardian, as fresh questions are asked over why the trust continues to pay at least £270,000 a year to its former chief executive. Sheila Childerhouse was criticised by an independent NHS report for her failure to question senior executives who had hounded Dr Patricia Mills after Mills had raised concerns about a colleague seen injecting himself with drugs while on duty. Childerhouse has announced that she will step down in January after consultants at the Bury St Edmunds hospital told her last week that her position was “untenable”. The NHS report, by Christine Outram, found that Childerhouse failed to take up Mills’ concerns when she was sent a “confidential” email in 2018 expressing alarm that the self-injecting doctor was being allowed to continue to treat patients. When the email was passed to the chief executive, Steve Dunn, Mills was accused of trouble-making, libelling the doctor and trying to undermine the hospital’s medical director, Nick Jenkins. In the report Childerhouse was also criticised for failing to question the “extremely ill-judged” decision by executives to demand fingerprint samples from Mills and others as part of a hunt for an anonymous letter writer who alerted a grieving family to a potentially botched operation. In her resignation statement, Childerhouse said: “I recognise and take personal accountability for the failings identified in the independent review into whistleblowing, and believe it is in the best interests of the organisation, our staff, patients and community that I do.” It is understood that Childerhouse had wanted to retain Dunn, described by the former health secretary Matt Hancock as a “brilliant leader”, as chief executive. She accepted Dunn had to go only in June, when two newly appointed non-executive directors resigned over the issue. Dunn was also roundly criticised in the report. As part of his leaving deal, the trust agreed to continue to pay Dunn’s salary and perks, between £270,000 and £275,000 last year, according to the trust’s accounts, while he was on secondment to the Nuffield trust thinktank. Mills said doctors were alarmed to discover the terms of the deal. She said: “We were all really surprised to find out that Steve Dunn is in fact still employed by West Suffolk and will be until September 2022. That fact was opaque in the communication that came out when he left in July.” Separately, the trust has disclosed to Mills, under freedom of information rules, that it paid a private company, Vista Investigations, £57,388 to investigate her conduct during the affair, including £3,015 in hotel bills for the investigator. The cost of a previous external investigation into her has yet to be disclosed. Outram said the investigatory process against Mills lacked “fairness, balance and compassion”. A spokesperson for the Nuffield trust said Dunn “has accepted the failings and shortcomings around the handling of events leading up to and surrounding the whistleblowing”. Dr Jenny Vaughan, chair of the Doctors’ Association UK, said: “What is deeply concerning to us is why lead members of the executive, who were responsible, are still on the trust payroll on apparently the same terms.” She backed Mills’ calls for the managers involved to be held to account: “Without hounding people, in the way Dr Mills was treated by them, there must be accountability by management for this debacle. Saying that they ‘accept the failings and shortcomings’ in no way makes up for the damage done. Continuing to take a full pay packet while clinging to their position after such a devastating report speaks volumes about the seriousness with which these findings are being taken.” A source at the trust confirmed that Dunn was “working out the remainder of his employment, which includes his contractual notice period, at the Nuffield trust”.