COURAGEOUS Linda Bigwood tried for five years to blow the whistle on disgraced psychiatrist William Kerr.

After a patient told her she had been having a sexual relationship with the doctor, the deputy sister doggedly pressed for managers to investigate the allegations.

But they failed to do so, and he ended up retiring with official thanks for his "valuable contribution" to health care in North Yorkshire. However, her career nosedived and she was even warned she risked getting the sack.

Today she was being hailed by health chiefs as a "courageous, persistent and determined" whistleblower, who deserved a better hearing. Her concerns have been finally addressed with an official report into the scandal of Dr Kerr and his colleague, Michael Haslam, which calls for radical changes in the NHS.

The 955-page document, which follows a four-year inquiry costing £3.2 million, demands new guidance for managers in handling sex abuse complaints and new guidelines for all staff to reduce the risk of sexual misconduct.

It has made a total of 74 recommendations, and told the Government they must be implemented within 12 months.

The report says Linda Bigwood's detailed and contemporaneous notes provided a unique insight into how the hospital and district and regional health authorities responded when faced with allegations of sexual misconduct by one of their consultant psychiatrists.

It says that in the summer of 1983, a patient made a detailed disclosure to Linda that, for a number of years, she had been having a consensual sexual relationship with psychiatrist Dr Kerr, which was against medical ethics. The patient was subsequently "thrown into the lion's den" when she was subjected to a one-to-one interview with Kerr, after which she retracted all her allegations.

"What is revealed by the patient's story is a disturbing picture of inaction, or part action, amounting in the end to a total failure by hospital staff and administrators to investigate the allegations against William Kerr, despite Linda Bigwood's dogged pursuit of the issue."

Updated: 10:08 Tuesday, July 19, 2005