Behaviour of NHS leaders toward whistleblowers ‘shocking’, says Francis

NHS leaders continue to exhibit “shocking” behaviour when confronted with concerns raised by whisteblowers, according to Sir Robert Francis.

The veteran patient safety expert – currently interim chair of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority – was speaking at the Whistleblowers UK conference last week. 

He said the NHS still lacked a “system that gives proper justice to those who have been victimised” after raising concerns.

“There remain terrible issues,” he said. ”No one is being held accountable. We will get nowhere on this issue unless there is a consensus to make it perfectly normal, and indeed expected, to speak up if you are worried about something. Recruitment and training have to be on the basis of these values.

“When things go wrong people need to say that and take responsibility. What happens when they don’t do that? Very little, I’m afraid. The behaviour on the part of some senior people is shocking. They don’t end up being disciplined. That is something that needs to change.”

The barrister said a systemic problem was that trusts often treated a whistleblower’s concerns as a disciplinary or HR matter, rather than a clinical issue that needed to be investigated. This meant safety problems were often not examined until HR matters had been concluded.

He said: “The problem with so many cases is that there is no authoritative internal and impartial investigation of the facts. This needs to happen at the earliest stage.

“Safety concerns raised should be treated as incidents to be investigated, not HR issues to be ‘managed’.”

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Source: HSJ, 17 July 2025

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