// BBC HEALTH NEWS — SALUTE
Trouble at the top - the crisis of confidence in Scotland's NHS leaders
The report detailed problems affecting Dr Gray's Hospital but it said management failings affected the whole region
The verdict from Scotland's healthcare watchdog on NHS Grampian could hardly have been more damning.
Major problems at Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin, but deficiencies stretching across the whole region, a failure to learn from mistakes and "recurring patterns of harm".
Thursday's report from Health Improvement Scotland is more evidence that frontline NHS staff feel they are carrying the can for poor leadership by highly-paid, powerful people at the top of Scotland's health boards.
Centre stage this time is chief executive Laura Skaife-Knight, who earns between £170,000 and £175,000 a year. She ordered this review, but does not escape blame.
'Dramatic action' needed after NHS Grampian leaders criticised in damning report - Swinney
The report reveals she was forced into a humiliating apology earlier this year, for giving misleading information about a review into a patient's death during surgery.
Not only did Health Improvement Scotland find the investigation into the death was inadequate, it also found the chief executive then misled Health Improvement Scotland by saying senior executives had not seen the review or signed it off.
In fact, executive medical director Hugh Bishop had been sent the review, and had discussed it in a meeting, but claimed he had "no recollection" of this.
Misinformation provided by Skaife-Knight to the watchdog caused "significant distress" to staff at lower levels, who felt the management had tried to shift the blame onto them.