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Found 317 results
  1. News Article
    A whistleblower at the centre of a bullying scandal at West Suffolk hospital says she will “never be the same again” after being “pursued” by NHS managers when she raised concerns about a doctor injecting himself with drugs while on duty. Dr Patricia Mills was exonerated last week in an independent NHS review that was highly critical of the way she was ignored and then subjected to disciplinary investigation that verged on “victimisation”. The review, by Christine Outram, chair of the Christie NHS foundation trust, said Mills’s concerns about the self-injecting doctor were “well founded” and yet, instead of acting on them, managers subjected her to an investigation that lacked “fairness, balance and compassion”. It included what Outram called the “incendiary” and “extremely ill-judged” demand to Mills and other doctors for fingerprint samples as part of a management hunt for an anonymous letter-writer who had tipped off a grieving family about a potentially botched operation. “I do feel vindicated,” Mills, a 53-year-old anaesthetist, told the Guardian, but she said the 21-month investigation into her conduct, which was only formally dropped in September, has had a lasting impact. “I will never be the same again. To be absolutely pursued like that by your employer inevitably has long-term consequences in terms of psychological wellbeing. It was an orchestrated campaign that really floored me.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 December 2021
  2. News Article
    West Suffolk Foundation Trust’s investigation to find a whistleblower was “intimidating…flawed and not fit for purpose”, according to a damning review which is highly critical of the organisation’s leadership. The long-awaited review, published today, was triggered by ministers back in January 2020 following allegations that trust directors had ordered staff to give fingerprints and handwriting samples during a “witch hunt” for a whistleblower. The review, led by Christine Outram, has corroborated many of the allegations. It concluded trust leaders’ investigation to uncover the identity of the author of an anonymous letter sent to a patient’s family was “intimidating, flawed and not fit for purpose… impractical and unwise.” It said: “The decision to use fingerprinting and handwriting analysis in an NHS hospital, in the context of an anonymous letter and where no crime has been committed, was highly unusual and without doubt extremely ill-judged.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 December 2021
  3. News Article
    An investigation into whistleblowing claims which described patients “hanging off trolleys” and “vomiting down corridors” in a crowded emergency department has upheld most of the concerns. It comes after a staff member at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Foundation Trust wrote to the chief executive and trust’s commissioners after working a weekend shift within the emergency department at Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby. In their original email, sent in January 2020, the anonymous whistleblower said they were writing out of “sheer desperation for the safety of patients”. They added: “I have never in my whole career seen patients hanging off trolleys, vomiting down corridors, having [electrocardiograms] down corridors, patients desperate for the toilet, desperate for a drink. Basic human care is not being given safely or adequately…" “Your hospital is full, your A&E department is over-flowing, you are expecting staff to manage treble the amount of patients in majors and resus than they would do normally, without breaks, this is not safe. They cannot provide that care – which is evident.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 November 2021
  4. News Article
    Changes must be made across services at one of England's biggest NHS trusts following its first wide-ranging inspection, a health watchdog said. Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust - which runs Basildon, Southend and Broomfield hospitals - has been rated as "requires improvement". The Care Quality Commission (CQC) turned up unannounced after concerns over standards were raised. Philippa Styles, the CQC's head of hospital inspection, said they "found a mixed picture" of positive improvements and areas of concern. "Following the trust's formation in 2020, leaders should now be able to work together effectively to ensure care is consistent across all services," she said. "I recognise the enormous pressure NHS services are under... and that usual expectations cannot always be maintained, especially in the urgent and emergency department, but it is important they do all they can to mitigate risks to patient safety." The report said: Patients had not always been protected from harm. Staff had not all received mandatory training. There had been nine "never-should-happen" medical events. Records were sometimes inaccurate and not kept securely. Nursing and medical staffing was a "challenge across the trust", with shifts regularly below planned staffing numbers. There had been a high number of whistle-blowers raising concerns. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 December 2021
  5. News Article
    A doctor has accused England's health and care regulator of "moral corruption". Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Shyam Kumar says the Care Quality Commission misled the public over patient safety. Mr Kumar alleges he was unfairly dismissed from his role as a special adviser to the CQC because he acted as a whistleblower. His claims were made during an employment tribunal hearing in Manchester. Seconded by his employer, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, Mr Kumar had been giving the CQC expert advice on surgical departments during hospital inspections. But he was dismissed from this role, in early 2019. The CQC said a letter he had written to a colleague he had been in dispute with at his trust was incompatible with the standards expected of its special advisers. But Mr Kumar claims he was dismissed because, in 2018, he raised concerns with senior CQC figures that he was expected to simply rubber-stamp the final report following an under-resourced inspection. And he accused the regulator of sweeping his concerns under the carpet and providing false assurances on patient safety. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 November 2021
  6. News Article
    A management coach and adviser to the Care Quality Commission has been appointed as the new ‘national guardian’ for the ’freedom to speak up’ programme. Jayne Chidgey-Clark will take up her new role on 1 December. The national guardian’s office leads, trains and supports the network of over 700 freedom to speak up guardians in England, as well as providing “challenge and learning to the healthcare system”. Ms Chidgey-Clark, a registered nurse, has served as a specialist adviser to the CQC since 2017. She has run her own coaching, consultancy and interim management business since 2009. She was a clincial adviser to NHS England’s new care models programme for three years until 2018 and the director of the end of life care modernisation project at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust between 2008 and 2011. Her appointment comes after Henrietta Hughes announced in June she was stepping down from the role after five years. Ms Chidgey-Clark, who is the third appointee to the position, said: “I feel excited and privileged to have been appointed as the new National Guardian for the NHS. I am passionate about, and committed to, making a real difference in people’s lives through the planning and delivery of the highest quality, effective care with excellent outcomes for people who use our health services, and their families.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 November 2021
  7. News Article
    Trusts are still spending at least £1m a year on settlement agreements with staff containing ‘gagging clauses’ despite a crackdown on these conditions in recent years, HSJ research reveals. Freedom of information responses reveal 214 settlement agreements with confidentiality conditions worth £4.6m across three years NDAs — which are also known as “confidentiality clauses” or “gagging clauses” and prevent parties to a settlement agreement from disclosing its details — also seem to be becoming less popular. HSJ’s FOIs revealed 119 settlement agreements with an NDA with a total value of £2.16m, in 2018-19. In 2019-20, this fell to 87 such agreements with a total value of £1.5m. In 2020-21, there were 41 settlement agreements with such a clause, with a total value of £1.04m. A source with knowledge of confidentiality agreements in the NHS said: “Following some high-profile whistleblowing cases a few years ago… NHS organisations have been far more cautious in imposing confidentiality obligations in settlement agreements.” Numerous health secretaries have issued warnings about NDAs potentially being used to silence staff. In 2019, former health and social care secretary Matt Hancock said: “Settlement agreements that infringe on an individual’s right to speak out for the benefit of patients are completely inappropriate.” In 2013, then health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he would ban clauses in compromise agreements — as settlement agreements were then known — preventing NHS staff from raising patient safety concerns. After the Mid Staffordshire report was published, he wrote to all trust chairs, asking them to review the confidentiality clauses they were using. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 November 2021
  8. News Article
    A whistleblowing letter sent by maternity staff to inspectors and a newspaper was "the right thing to do", the hospital's boss said. Midwives at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds said they were "exhausted and broken" and claimed the unit was "consistently short-staffed". The hospital had previously been criticised for its treatment of whistleblowers. Its interim chief executive Craig Black said the letter was a "brave thing". The anonymous letter was sent to the Bury Free Press, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the West Suffolk Foundation NHS Trust, in August. It claimed the midwives had spoken out because standards of care had fallen sharply. Staff were "under extreme pressures all the time, which has left them fed up, exhausted and burnt out", it said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 October 2021
  9. News Article
    The chief inspector of hospitals has called for honesty about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on patients warning poor care could become normalised. Professor Ted Baker told The Independent it was vital staff continued to report incidents and revealed the Care Quality Commission had seen a 60% rise in whistleblowing concerns during the last national lockdown in November. He said staff must report incidents and be free to speak up about any concerns as well as being transparent with families where things have gone wrong. He emphasised that where a patient was unable to get the care they clinically needed because of the demand on services, this would amount to a notifiable patient safety incident. Professor Baker’s comments follow multiple anonymous leaks from NHS staff to The Independent in recent weeks, showing how bad the situation has become in some hospitals. Many staff have only spoken out on condition of anonymity. Many hospitals have declared major incidents, cancelled operations and been forced to stretch staffing ratios to unsafe levels to cope with the increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients. Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 January 2021
  10. News Article
    The NHS is under pressure to publish a delayed review into a bullying scandal at Matt Hancock’s local hospital that involved senior clinicians being asked to provide fingerprint samples in a “witch-hunt” for a whistleblower. The “rapid review” into West Suffolk hospital, which Hancock had to recuse himself from because of his friendship with the boss at the trust, was ordered in January and had been due for completion in April. Its publication was put back to this month because of the coronavirus pandemic. But it is now not expected until spring. The Doctors’ Association UK suspects the conclusions are being sat on because they make embarrassing reading for the trust’s chief executive, Steve Dunn, described by Hanock as a “brilliant leader”. A consultant who chairs the hospital’s medical staff committee wrote to the NHS’s regional director for the east of England, Ann Radmore, last week warning that senior medics felt the hospital could not move on until the review was published. The NHS East insists the review will be published as soon as possible, but a source confirmed this is likely to be “spring next year”.
  11. News Article
    What does whistleblowing in a pandemic look like? Do employers take concerns more seriously – as we would all hope? Does the victimisation of whistleblowers still happen? Does a pandemic compel more people to speak up? We wanted to know, so Protect analysed the data from all the Covid-19 related calls to theirr Advice Line. They found: * 41% of whistleblowers had Covid-19 concerns ignored by employers * 20% of whistleblowers were dismissed * Managers more likely to be dismissed (32% ) than non-managers (21%) They found that too many whistleblowers feel ignored and isolated once they raise their concerns and that these failing are a systematic problem. Protect, which runs an Advice Line for whistleblowers, and supports more than 3,000 whistleblowers each year, has been inundated with Covid-19 whistleblowing concerns, many of an extremely serious nature. Its report, The Best Warning System: Whistleblowing During Covid-19 examines over 600 Covid-19 calls to its Advice Line between March and September. The majority of cases were over furlough fraud and risk to public safety, such as a lack of social distancing and PPE in the workplace.
  12. News Article
    Leaking vials and suspected contamination were identified in a batch of more than 500,000 test tubes produced for the NHS Covid test and trace operation over the summer, whistleblowers have said. The test tubes were provided by a small UK-based company, Life Science Group (LSG), which produces materials for the diagnostics industry. According to the whistleblowers, there have been repeated problems with test tubes filled by LSG leaking. Stocks of some 600,000 test tubes were inspected in August as a result, and records seen by the Guardian describe the discovery of what looked like hair and blood contamination. It is understood firms in the supply chain concluded that the contamination was not hair or blood, following inspections. However, records seen by the Guardian suggested at least one bag of LSG test tubes thought to be contaminated “cannot now be found”. The whistleblowers said that rather than rejecting the entire potentially compromised batch, as would be normal safety protocol with NHS supplies, only part of the batch with visible problems was removed from use. They said they had blown the whistle because they were concerned for public safety. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 October 2020
  13. News Article
    An NHS trust has offered an unreserved apology to an elderly patient and his family after they accused hospital staff of restraining him 19 times in order to forcibly administer treatment. East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust admitted that care for the man, who has dementia, “fell far short” of what patients should expect. The 77-year-old had been admitted to the William Harvey Hospital last November for urinary retention problems, according to a recent BBC investigation. In February, The Independent revealed that a police investigation had been launched into an alleged assault against an elderly man at the hospital after nurses and carers were filmed by hospital security staff holding the man’s arms, legs and face down while they inserted a catheter. A whistleblower told The Independent that the incident was being covered up by the trust and staff were told: “Don’t discuss it, don’t refer to it at all.” On Wednesday, the trust said its investigation had found a failure to alert senior medics to the difficulties being experienced in caring for the patient. Changes to dementia care including ward reorganisation, training and recruitment are underway, said a spokesperson, who added: “We apologise unreservedly to the patient and his family for the failings in his care, this fell far short of what patients should expect.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 October 2020
  14. News Article
    Saskatchewan's highest court has ruled in favour of a nurse who was disciplined after she complained on Facebook about the care her grandfather had received in a long-term care facility. In a decision delivered Tuesday, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal set aside a decision by the province's Registered Nurses Association that found Carolyn Strom guilty of unprofessional conduct. Strom was off-duty when she aired her concerns on Facebook in 2015, a few weeks after her grandfather's death. In her Facebook post, she said staff at St. Joseph's Integrated Health Centre in the town of Macklin, about 225 kilometres west of Saskatoon, needed to do a better job of looking after elderly patients. The lawyer for the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association argued that Strom personally attacked an identifiable group without attempting to get all the facts about her grandfather's care. In 2016, she was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and $25,000 to cover the cost of the tribunal. After the association's decision, she received support from the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, as well as nurses and civil liberties groups across the country. "Once I understood what this case meant ... once it was past being just about me, I didn't want someone else to have to go through the same thing. Because it's been rough," Strom said. Strom says she continued to fight the decision because she wanted nurses to be able to talk about, and advocate for, better care for family members publicly and in a respectful manner. "You should be able to properly advocate for family members, regardless of whether you're a health-care member." "And I felt that if this decision went wrong, it would actually hurt people who have healthcare members as family members. because they would have to be a little more careful and not express concerns for fear of punishment." Appeal court Justice Brian Barrington-Foote wrote in his decision that Strom's freedom of expression was unjustifiably infringed, and she had a right to criticise the care her grandfather received. The judge ruled that criticism of the healthcare system is in the public interest, and when it comes from front-line workers it can bring positive change. Read full story Source: CBC News, 6 October 2020 .
  15. News Article
    Too many English hospitals risk repeating maternity scandals involving avoidable baby deaths and brain injury because staff are too frightened to raise concerns, the chief inspector of hospitals has warned. Speaking at the opening session of an inquiry into the safety of maternity units by the health select committee, Prof Ted Baker, chief inspector of hospitals for the Care Quality Commission, said: “There are too many cases when tragedy strikes because services are not not doing their job well enough.” Baker admitted that 38% of such services were deemed to require improvement for patient safety and some could get even worse. “There is a significant number of services that are not achieving the level of safety they should,” he said. He said many NHS maternity units were in danger of repeating fatal mistakes made at what became the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS foundation trust (UHMBT), despite a high profile 2015 report finding that a “lethal mix” of failings at almost every level led to the unnecessary deaths of one mother and 11 babies. “Five years on from Morecombe Bay we have still not learned all the lessons,” Baker said. “[The] Morecombe Bay [report] did talk about about dysfunctional teams and midwives and obstetricians not working effectively together, and poor investigations without learning taking place. And I think those elements are what we are still finding in other services.” Baker urged hospital managers to encourage staff to whistleblow about problems without fear of recrimination. He said: “The reason why people are frightened to raise concerns is because of the culture in the units in which they work. A healthy culture would mean that people routinely raise concerns. But raising concerns is regarded as being a difficult member of the team.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 September 2020
  16. News Article
    Detainees held in an immigration centre in the US have been subjected to potentially unnecessary hysterectomies performed without informed consent, a nurse whistleblower has alleged. Dawn Wooten, who filed a whistleblower complaint with the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, says she was demoted and her hours slashed after she complained about substandard medical care, questionable surgeries on women, and failure to protect detainees and staff from COVID-19. A report of the charges1 was filed by four non-profit rights and welfare groups on behalf of the detained immigrants at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, which is operated by the private prison company, LaSalle Corrections. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 16 September 2020
  17. News Article
    Doctors in Wales have faced bullying and disciplinary action for raising concerns over working conditions and safety, a union leader has said. Dr Phil Banfield, of BMA Wales, said doctors who complained about work, both before and during the Covid pandemic, were seen as "troublemakers". He said there are worries bullying among staff will get worse as longer post-Covid waiting lists are tackled. The Welsh government said bullying of NHS staff was "entirely unacceptable". Dr Banfield, who is chairman of the BMA Welsh consultants' committee, said staff have faced the prospect of being victimised by colleagues, or even being forced to leave the Welsh NHS, for raising concerns over bullying or health and safety. He said: "Staff are quite good at raising concerns, but they don't raise concerns if they're going get in trouble for it, or they sense nothing is going to happen. What happens is you think 'I can't be bothered'. "Decent people develop a kind of learned helplessness and it means that people who keep raising concerns stand out." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 May 2021
  18. News Article
    Three private mental health hospitals have been placed in special measures after the Care Quality Commission found concerns over infection control. John Munroe Hospital and Edith Shaw Hospital, both in Staffordshire and run by the John Munroe Group, were inspected after the CQC received several whistleblowing complaints over poor covid-19 infection control and covid deaths. A third hospital, Priory Hospital Arnold, based in Nottinghamshire, was criticised over hygiene and infection control failures after the regulator found dried blood, faeces, food and sputum on seclusion room walls. In reports published this week, the CQC revealed it had placed all three hospitals in special measures and imposed urgent enforcement action against the providers. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 April 2021
  19. News Article
    NHS whistleblowers have required counselling and medication and a quarter would not raise concerns again due to the stress and lack of support, a report found. A review of existing policy at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde found “concerning” evidence of a significant impact on the mental health of both whistleblowers and managers with little support provided. It found there was “no clear documented process” to highlight serious, urgent issues to the appropriate manager. Healthworkers’ union Unison said staff were often labelled ‘trouble-makers’ with senior managers "defensive from the outset". Sixty percent of staff reported that their mental health was negatively impacted by whistleblowing with some requiring counselling or medication to cope with the stress of disclosures. The report said it was of concern that a quarter of staff stated that they would not raise concerns such as unsafe clinical practices again given their experiences, a figure which it said was likely to be higher as this information was only recorded if it was volunteered by staff. Unison’s Regional Organiser Matt McLaughlin said, “Unison welcomes this paper and the Boards commitment to follow the updates national guidance. “However it will take more than a new policy for whistleblowers to feel valued within NHS GGC. The organisation is too defensive and staff who whistleblow often do so out of shear frustration that legitimate concerns are ignored – or worse, where the whistleblower is seen as a trouble maker. " "NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde needs to embrace and welcome staff speaking out; rather than being defensive from the outset." Read full story Source: The Herald, 28 April 2021
  20. News Article
    Allegations of staff assaulting patients at a mental health hospital have been uncovered for a second time, one year after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) first raised concerns over potential abuse at the unit. The regulator criticised Broomhill Hospital in Northampton in a report issued this week after inspectors found details of three alleged assaults by staff against patients. The unit is run by independent sector provider St Matthew’s Healthcare, but treats NHS patients. In May 2020, the CQC placed the hospital into special measures amid concerns it was failing to protect patients against abuse. Patients had raised concerns to inspectors over poor staff attitudes and made allegations that two had physically assaulted patients. A second inspection this year was triggered by further whistleblowing concerns from patients and staff. Following the most recent inspection, which took place this February, the CQC has again raised warnings about staff allegedly assaulting patients. The staff members involved in all three incidents were dismissed and the CQC has asked the provider to inform the police of one incident. According to the report: “Staff had not always treated patients with compassion and kindness… [or] been discreet, respectful, and responsive when caring for patients. Two patients told us that their experience in the hospital was ‘terrible’. Two different patients told us that they had observed staff shout at patients. Another patient described Broomhill as ‘the worst hospital they had been in’, adding that they were not happy with the care provided.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 April 2021
  21. News Article
    A ‘flurry’ of whistleblowers have raised concerns about the culture within an NHS trust which is grappling with finance and governance problems, its directors were told today. Staff at Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust have reported a “command and control” culture at the trust, which last week apologised to its employees for overtime payments made to board members for extra hours worked during the first peak of the pandemic. It comes as the trust’s new chair and interim chief executive both pledged to communicate “openly and honestly” with staff. Read full story (paywalled) Source HSJ, 12 April 2021
  22. News Article
    An acute trust is reviewing thousands of gastroenterology cases for possible patient harm, after details emerged of an ‘extremely concerning’ list of patients who have not had follow-up appointments for up to six years since being treated. HSJ understands major concerns have been raised internally at Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust, over 9,500 patients who received treatment at Aintree University Hospital as far back as 2015, but have not had a follow-up appointment. Whistleblowers have also contacted the Care Quality Commission, which has confirmed it is looking into the issues. Well-placed sources said around 7,000 of the cases have “target dates” for an outpatient follow-up that are in the past. Around 20 of these cases were supposed to be seen in 2015 or 2016, with around 400 dating back to 2017, and around 900 to 2018, the sources said. The remaining 2,500 cases either have no target date or have not yet had a follow-up appointment booked. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 April 2021
  23. News Article
    Former staff at a Midlands acute trust have raised concerns over a ‘toxic management culture’ and ‘unsafe’ staffing levels within its maternity services, HSJ has learned. Two clinicians who recently worked within Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust’s maternity department have sent a letter to the Care Quality Commission outlining a series of concerns. The letter, seen by HSJ, claimed there was a “toxic management culture alongside poor leadership” within the trust’s senior midwifery team. It added: “This had led to 100 per cent turnover in staff within the middle management line… There is no confidence in the current leadership structure and no confidence that staff will be listened to and heard.” HSJ also understands there are also concerns around the service within the trust’s management. Although they do not raise direct patient safety concerns, the clinicians said the problems were “mostly long-standing” and had “deteriorated to the point where there is now a risk to patient safety”. They added: “We are raising these concerns now with the CQC as we feel we have not been listened to and changed effected in a timely manner.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2021
  24. News Article
    A long-delayed review into West Suffolk Foundation Trust board members’ alleged bullying of whistleblowers is now due to be published ‘by the spring’, senior figures familiar with the process have told HSJ. The news comes amid calls from senior medics and a campaign group for the review — originally due for publication in April 2020 — to be published as soon as possible. The review was set up to investigate the “handling and circumstances surrounding concerns raised in a letter that was sent in October 2018, to the relative of a patient who had died in the Suffolk hospital”. The letter was sent to the family of Susan Warby, 57, who died at West Suffolk Hospital in August 2018 after suffering multi-organ failure and other complications. The letter’s anonymous author raised serious concerns about her treatment by the trust. The trust launched an investigation, involving fingerprinting and handwriting experts, to find the letter’s author. The process, led by the trust’s senior management, prompted staff to report they felt harassed and bullied, and unions to label the process a “witch hunt” (See box below: Timeline of West Suffolk bullying allegations). NHS England and Improvement is overseeing the probe, which was ordered by ministers in January 2020. The coronavirus pandemic caused publication to be pushed back until December, but no official reasons have been given for the further delay. Read full story (paywalled) Source: 9 March 2021
  25. News Article
    A children’s nurse who raised legitimate concerns over racial discrimination at a major London trust was suspended and victimised by her managers for doing so, an employment tribunal has ruled. Jeyran Panahian-Jand, who worked on a children’s ward at Whipps Cross Hospital, parts of Barts Health Trust, had raised concerns with her manager in 2019 that staff were divided on “racial lines”, with an “unfair allocation of work”, as well as bullying of two junior staff. Her manager Heather Roberts, as well as other superiors, told Ms Panahian-Jand she should raise a formal complaint, without offering to look at the issues raised and keep the complaint informal, which the tribunal said they should have done under whistleblowing policies. Ms Roberts later accused Ms Panahian-Jand, who identified as white, of continuing to talk about her allegations on the ward, and with the agreement of Ghislaine Stephenson, the associate director of nursing for children, Ms Panahian-Jand was suspended for the “disruption” and “upset” she was causing, the tribunal judgment said. Ms Panahnian-Jand then lodged a formal complaint over race discrimination, as well as accusing two other bank nurses of making “racially abusive” remarks. A subsequent internal investigation supported three allegations of race discrimination made by Ms Panahian-Jand, while a separate probe into her own alleged misconduct found there was no case to answer. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 February 2021
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