A hospital chief executive has been awarded £1.2 million because he was unfairly sacked after he flagged up concerns about the relocation of specialist cancer services.

John Watkinson, 55, was dismissed from his £148,000 per year job at the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust (RCHT) when he raised advice which warned it may be illegal to centralise surgery on upper gastro-intestinal cancer without proper consultation.

Earlier this year, an employment tribunal in Exeter ruled that he was "got rid of" because of his opposition to the relocation from Cornwall and Exeter to Plymouth, which went ahead last January.

Now, the panel has awarded what it describes as a "very substantial" sum for the whistle-blowing element of his case. It comes on top of the payment of £67,250 that RCHT was ordered to pay out last month, after it failed to follow proper procedure in his dismissal.

Yesterday, RCHT declined to comment, because it is still pursuing an appeal against the whistle-blowing claim, although it accepts Mr Watkinson was unfairly dismissed.

The tribunal concluded that pressure was applied to the RCHT board from the Strategic Health Authority (SHA), and specifically its chief executive Sir Ian Carruthers, to dismiss Mr Watkinson.

In the latest ten page ruling, the panel upheld its earlier criticisms of both RCHT and the SHA, and said the 12-day hearing was "deliberated at length".

"There were many issues to be determined, not least of which was whether there was the necessary causative link between the claimant's protected disclosure and the attitude of Sir Ian Carruthers, which led the board to dismiss him."

The SHA also declined to comment yesterday, other than to state the matter was an issue for the RCHT.

Mr Watkinson was appointed to the trust in January 2007, and sacked in April 2009.

The payout award was based on a number of calculations, including Mr Watkinson's £148,000 salary until his expected retirement at 62, including pay rises.

The panel rejected his claim that the higher sum of £170,000 should be taken into account, because the RCHT board had written a letter of intent to provide the pay rise. Although the board had no legal requirement to seek approval from the SHA for the increase, it had asked for it, but received no response.

The payment also takes into account Mr Watkinson's projected pension, estimated at more than £79,000 per year.

The tribunal considered Mr Watkinson's financial circumstances as a result of the sacking. He has tried and failed to sell his Cornish home, and now rents it out, and lives in Cambridgeshire with his wife.

The panel concluded that it would be "improbable" that Mr Watkinson would be successful in his quest to find work within the NHS, because of the publicity surrounding the case. They found he would be at a "significant disadvantage" of finding any type of work, because of the amount of time he has now been unemployed. But they said he was an "able, articulate and determined individual", and estimated that he could earn about £30,000 from consultancy work.

Yesterday, Mr Watkinson, who worked his way up from starting as a teenage hospital porter, described the outcome as "bitter sweet".

He said: "Although the award is substantial, it cannot replace the 35 year long NHS career, which I expected to last a further 12 years to my retirement."

He said the dismissal was "blighting" his chance of finding work, and said: "It seems I can hold out little or no hope of a senior role in the service to which I have dedicated my professional life. I do not believe it can be right that power could be so thoroughly abused and I hope that those responsible will be held to account, not least on behalf of the taxpayers who are funding the massive costs of this affair."

He said the payment depended on a successful outcome at RCHT's appeal, but said: "For me, the most important thing remains the judgement of the Employment Tribunal last March that restored my good name and reputation when it ruled that I had been unfairly dismissed because I was a whistle- blower.

"As RCHT has appealed only against the whistle-blowing dimension, it is now accepted that I was procedurally and substantively unfairly dismissed."

Yesterday, Joe McKenna, chairman of campaign group Health Initiative Cornwall, called on the RCHT board to "fall on their swords" and resign over the issue.

He said: "This is £1.2 million that could have been spent on patient care, but that's not John Watkinson's fault. We believe the blame lies with the RCHT board, who dismissed him unfairly.

"He was a reasonably young man with a sterling career ahead of him and I'm not surprised at the amount of money that has been awarded.

"In the wake of this, I genuinely don't think anybody can have any confidence at all in the management of either RCHT or the SHA."