Speaking up for patient safety: Martyn Pitman in conversation with Peter Duffy and Helen Hughes

Summary

In this podcast interview series, NHS whistleblower Peter Duffy and Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive Helen Hughes explore how the healthcare system responds when its staff raise concerns about patient safety. In each episode, Helen and Peter interview someone who has spoken up about patient safety issues in healthcare organisations, or who works to help staff raise concerns where they see unsafe care.

Peter and Helen speak to Martyn Pitman, who worked as a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in the NHS for more than 20 years. Martyn describes how grievances were raised against him by colleagues after he shared concerns about the safety of maternity services at the trust he worked for. He believes these complaints were raised as a response to him speaking up about his patient safety concerns and they eventually resulted in Martyn losing his job and career. Martyn describes the impact of his experience over the last few years on his mental health and highlights the unrelenting support he received from individuals he had looked after throughout his career as an consultant. He talks about how the current legal and regulatory framework is ineffective in protecting whistleblowers from retaliatory action. He also shares why we need more effective ways to hold NHS leaders and managers to account and describes the role that regulation might play in this.

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View a transcript of this interview

Read a blog from Peter and Helen about the interview series

Content