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Showing results for tags 'Whistleblowing'.
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News ArticleStaff at a Midlands hospital trust told regulators they had repeatedly raised safety concerns internally without action being taken. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has downgraded maternity services at Worcestershire Acute Hospital from “good” to “requires improvement” following an inspection prompted by the whistleblowers’ concerns. Staff had reported “continuously escalating” staffing level concerns to senior managers, but said they got “no response”. Some said they were fearful of raising concerns internally. Whistleblowers also reported delays to induction of labour, with examples of women waiting up to a week to be induced instead of one to two days. Managers said women who suffered delays were risk assessed. The CQC also identified a risk women might not be informed of significant harm caused to them or their babies following an incident, due to the way the trust was grading some babies who were admitted to the neonatal unit. However, it added: “When things went wrong, staff apologised and gave patients honest information and suitable support.” The report added the trust’s leaders were aware of the challenges in maternity, but “timely” action was not always taken to address the concerns. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 February 2021
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News Article
NHS board special measures call over child's hospital death
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Scotland's biggest health board should be put in "special measures" over its handling of hospital infection issues, according to an MSP. Anas Sarwar made the call after a mother accused NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) of covering up possible factors in her daughter's death.Mr Sarwar said the health board had tried to intimidate health service whistleblowers who had raised concerns. NHSGGC said the source of the child's infection could not be determined. Earlier this week a whistleblower revealed that a doctor-led review had identified 26 infections at Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Children in 2017 which were potentially linked to problems with the water supply. Kimberly Darroch, whose daughter Milly Main died at the hospital in August 2017 while in remission from leukaemia, said health officials gave her no inkling that contaminated water could have been a factor. Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has said the first she knew of Milly's death was when Ms Darroch emailed her about her concerns in September. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has offered to meet the family to discuss their concerns - but said it was impossible to accurately determine the source of Milly's infection because there was no requirement for water testing at the time. It said the hospital's water had been independently assessed as safe, and it criticised the whistleblower for causing "stress and anxiety" for Milly's parents when there was no evidence of a link. Anas Sarwar, however, insisted the health board had let down both patients and staff. He said: "There was an attempted cover-up of Milly's death, and there are still dozens of families who don't know the truth about infections contracted in the QEUH." Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 February 2021 -
News ArticleA hospital A&E department has been downgraded by regulators amid fears of “significant risk of harm” to patients after inspectors found some were crammed “head to toe” on trolleys during a surge in coronavirus cases. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told bosses at the Royal Oldham Hospital to urgently improve its A&E service after the November inspection found staff were not following infection rules and patients were at risk of catching the virus. The inspection confirms reports, revealed by The Independent last year, that patients in the A&E unit were being forced to wait close together for long periods. Whistleblowers from the trust said the practice was unsafe and the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Katherine Henderson, said it was a “potentially lethal” situation. The CQC visited the emergency department on 30 November after it said concerns were raised over the safety of patients. Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 February 2021
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News ArticleThe NHS’ response to the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic saw the number of whistleblowing concerns raised with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) almost double in December, with the strength of local leadership among the most frequent complaints. Many parts of the NHS, particularly in the South East, were suffering major covid pressures in December, and the regulator received 204 whistleblowing concerns, compared to 105 in the same month in 2019. The most common complaints were around staffing levels, infection control and leadership. The rise in complaints was revealed by CQC chief inspector of hospitals Ted Baker in an interview with HSJ. Professor Baker also said the pandemic had proved that the NHS’ emergency care system lacked “resilience”. Trusts which the regulator has received concerns about in recent months have included Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, over poor staffing levels and infection controls, University Hospitals Birmingham FT, around staffing levels and leadership concerns, and Mid and South Essex FT, over concerns around the provision of oxygen. Professor Baker told HSJ: “One of the really positive things that has happened during the pandemic is an increase in the number of people raising concerns with us. It’s been really helpful for us in assessing the risk in the system." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 February 2021
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News Article
Multiple whistleblowers flag ‘heartbreaking’ incidents at major trust
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Clinicians within a major teaching hospital’s cancer services have raised multiple concerns over patient safety, which they believe have resulted from badly planned service changes in response to the covid crisis. HSJ has spoken to several staff members who have worked in the haematology speciality at University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust since last June, when the services underwent significant changes to free up capacity for coronavirus patients. This involved most haematology services at Heartlands Hospital in east Birmingham moving to the trust’s main Queen Elizabeth Hospital site in Edgbaston. The staff, who all wished to remain anonymous, told HSJ the transfer happened at just one week’s notice and was poorly planned. Once implemented, they said QEH’s newly enlarged service suffered from extreme staffing shortages, leading to several “never events”, such as patients being given the wrong blood type. In one resignation letter, a nurse who had transferred to QEH told managers patients’ “basic care needs are not being met”. The nurse said most shifts were understaffed, with examples of three nurses looking after 30 patients and added in the resignation letter: “I am witnessing strong and knowledgeable colleagues breaking down on each shift. “Furthermore, never events are happening at an alarming rate, necessary resources are commonly unavailable and communication between all levels of seniority is poor…" Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 February 2021 -
News ArticleA nurse who was threatened by colleagues for speaking out about care failings at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust has said bullying remains a “real problem” in the NHS. Helene Donnelly has told MPs that more than 10 years on from the scandal – commonly known as Mid Staffs – she was still seeing “echoes” of what she experienced happening across the country. “Although it is in the minority, as we saw at Mid Staffs the results can be absolutely catastrophic” She called for the development of a national body to improve workplace cultures in the NHS and “stamp out bullying once and for all”. The inquiry into poor standards of care and deaths at Mid Staffordshire indentified issues around staff behaviour, inadequate staffing levels and skills, and lack of effective leadership and support. Ms Donnelly told a Health and Social Care Committee hearing today that there were “real negative behaviours” at the trust that created a “real bullying culture of fear and intimidation”. “There was not a culture that encouraged and enabled staff to speak up and if they did as I did, we were bullied and threatened,” said Ms Donnelly, who now holds the roles of ambassador for cultural change and lead Freedom to Speak Up Guardian at the organisation where she works. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Nursing Times
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News Article
NHS Highland pays out millions to bullied staff
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS Highland says it expects to pay £3.4m in settlements to current and former staff who have complained of bullying. Whistleblowers exposed a "culture of bullying" at NHS Highland in 2018. A Scottish government-commissioned review suggested hundreds of health workers may have experienced inappropriate behaviour. So far 150 cases have been settled since the start of a "healing process", costing the health board more than £2m. Whistleblower Brian Devlin told BBC Scotland the scale of settlements made so far was "heartening", but he added that he continued to have concerns about bullying at the health board. A group of Highlands GPs first complained of a culture of bullying at NHS Highland in September 2018. Staff said they had not felt valued, respected or supported in carrying out "very stressful work". Others told of not being listened to when raising matters regarding patient safety concerns and decisions being made "behind closed doors". The review also said that "many described a culture of fear and of protecting the organisation when issues are raised". Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 September 2021 -
News ArticleA child safeguarding expert who faced vilification after raising concerns about the safety of children undergoing treatment at a London NHS gender identity clinic has won an employment tribunal case against the hospital trust. Sonia Appleby, 62, was awarded £20,000 after an employment tribunal ruled the NHS’s Tavistock and Portman trust’s treatment of her damaged her professional reputation and “prevented her from proper work on safeguarding”. Appleby, an experienced psychoanalytical psychotherapist, was responsible for protecting children at risk from maltreatment. The tribunal heard evidence she raised concerns about the treatment of increasing numbers of children being referred to the trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (Gids). The service in Hampstead has been at the heart of a controversy over its treatments, including the provision of drugs known as puberty blockers to children as young as 10. The tribunal heard evidence that after she raised the concerns, instead of addressing them, the trust management ostracised her and attempted to prevent her from carrying out her safeguarding role, by sidelining her. Appleby said the management’s action amounted to a “full-blown organisational assault”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 September 2021
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News ArticleThe boss of a NHS trust that asked hospital staff for fingerprints and handwriting samples as it hunted a whistleblower is stepping down. Dr Stephen Dunn will leave West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust in the summer after seven years as chief executive. An independent inquiry into the way management handled the affair is expected to report in the autumn. In 2018, Jon Warby received a letter two months after the death of his wife, Susan. It claimed mistakes were made during her bowel surgery. An inquest into her death was subsequently told how she had been given glucose instead of saline fluid via an arterial line. The Doctors' Association described the hospital's attempt to find the author of the letter a "witch-hunt". A subsequent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection said the way internal investigations had been conducted by the hospital was "unusual and of concern". Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 July 2021
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News Article
'More work to do' to improve Nottingham maternity units
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More needs to be done to bring maternity units at a city's two main hospitals up to scratch, inspectors have said. In 2020 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found serious concerns at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and labelled the units "inadequate". A new report concluded the trust still has "some areas to address". In October a coroner said the death of Wynter Andrews minutes after she was born was "a clear and obvious case of neglect". Nottinghamshire assistant coroner Laurinda Bower also revealed a 2018 whistle-blowing letter from midwives to trust bosses outlining concerns over staffing levels as "the cause of a potential disaster". In the same month "in response to concerns raised... and coronial inquests", the CQC carried out an unannounced inspection at the hospital and found some staff had not completed training and "did not always understand how to keep women and babies safe", and issued a warning notice over its concerns. Its latest report, based on an inspection in April, found improvements in the way women at risk of deterioration were identified and found documentation and monitoring had improved. However the CQC found a disconnect between online and paper record-keeping and said there were multiple systems in place that led to duplication and errors at times. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 May 2021 -
Content ArticleThis article in the Journal of Interprofessional Care highlights the challenges experienced by programme leaders and healthcare professionals as they work to improve patient safety. It discusses the complexities of translating organisation-wide speaking-up policies to local practices and settings.
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Content ArticleSeveral accidents have shown that crew members’ failure to speak up can have devastating consequences. Despite decades of crew resource management (CRM) training, this problem persists and still poses a risk to flight safety. This study aimed to understand why crew members choose silence over speaking up. The authors explored past speaking up behaviour and the reasons for silence in 1,751 crew members, who reported to have remained silent in half of all speaking up episodes they had experienced. Reasons for silence mainly concerned fear of damaging relationships, fear of punishment and operational pressures. The study identified significant group differences in the frequencies and reasons for silence and recommends interventions to specifically and effectively foster speaking up.
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Content Article
UK Government guidance - Whistleblowing for employees
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Whistle blowing
This guidance by the UK Government provides information and advice for employees who want to understand their rights regarding whistleblowing. It includes information on: What is a whistleblower? Who is protected by law Complaints that count as whistleblowing Who to tell and what to expect What to do if you're treated unfairly after whistleblowing -
Content ArticleAlready familiar to a number of NHS Trusts, Work In Confidence is a platform providing anonymity to those who wish to raise concerns.
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Content Article“Freedom to Speak Up requires leadership commitment throughout the health and care system,” writes Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark in a blog for the Health Service Journal. “In this way, we can foster the speak up, listen up, follow up culture, which will give workers, and ultimately those who use our services, the health and care sector they deserve.” She encourages all senior leaders to under take training to understand their role in forster a good speaking up culture that promotes organisational learning and improvement.
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Content ArticleMaternity services shouldn’t be waiting for whistle-blowers or inquiries to alert them to problems, says Dr Mark Ratnarajah, a practising paediatrician and managing director of C2-Ai. Instead systematic transdisciplinary reviews and real-time data should support a culture of shared learning, that helps ensure patient safety is everybody’s responsibility.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Bob Matheson, Head of Advice and Advocacy at the charity Protect, explains the case of Dr Chris Day and how it highlights the vital importance of reforms to UK whistleblowing law. Protect is campaigning for Reform of whistleblowing legislation in the UK. The author highlights loopholes in UK law that Dr Day has faced throughout his long legal battle with Health Education England (HEE). These gaps mean that whistleblowers lack certain important legal rights and protections, and this in turn may prevent individuals from raising concerns.
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Content ArticleEverybody makes mistakes at work but what if you're a doctor and you ruin a patient's life - or even end it? Doctor-turned-writer Jed Mercurio recalls a catalogue of errors from his years as a medical student.
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Content ArticleThis presentation provides an insight into a real life crowdfunded NHS whistleblowing case. This comes from the perspective of both a frontline NHS clinician and crowdfunder. The tactics used against Dr Day, his response to them and the effect that such a public protracted fight has had on NHS culture and ‘confidence in the system’. Potential changes are then discussed Chris is a Locum Emergency Medicine doctor working at the moment in East London. Chris is also a Claimant in a high profile whistleblowing case that has been ongoing for nearly 9 years. The case re-established statutory whistleblowing protection (in the Court of Appeal) for junior doctors in England. The case has had further media attention last month when Chris’ NHS opponents admitted to destroying evidence whilst a 16 day court hearing was in progress.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, consultant on workforce culture Roger Kline looks at the case of Shyam Kumar, an orthopaedic consultant who was seconded as an inspector for the Care Quality Commission (CQC). After raising concerns about patient safety, harm, cover up and bullying of staff with the CQC, his secondment with them was terminated. An Employment Tribunal has found that Mr Kumar's concerns were well-founded and that he was then victimised for raising them by the CQC. The Tribunal accepted his claims that he was removed from his secondment as a CQC inspector as a result of making protected disclosures, accepted his evidence, and at a number of points did not believe the evidence provided by senior CQC staff. The blog raises the question of whether the CQC would fail on its own criteria for being a 'well led' organisation on the basis of this case. It also questions whether the CQC can credibly hold NHS organisations to account on whistleblowing after its response to having concerns raised by Mr Kumar, one of its own inspectors. The author asserts that "the CQC needs to urgently demonstrate it will apply accountability to its own decision making, and lack of support for those raising concerns, and hold its own senior leaders (up to the CEO) to account for decisions which are contrary to its own published standards."
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Content ArticleThis webpage highlights press coverage of the Chris Day whistleblowing hearing which took place in June 2022. Dr Day's case originates in 2013, when he initially raised concerns about unsafe staffing levels at Woolwich Hospital ITU, run by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. Following this, senior management in the Trust made allegations about his conduct, he believes as a result of his whistleblowing action. As a result Health Education England (HEE) deleted Dr Day's training number, meaning he was unable to progress to become a consultant. Dr Day has been campaigning for a public hearing of the case since 2016, and believes HEE, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and other authorities have spent large amounts of money attempting to 'crush' his case and prevent it from being heard. The tribunal hearing finally took place in June 2022 and featured revelations about Trust staff deliberately deleting emails relevant to the case, partisan briefings made to senior NHS management about Dr Day and inaccurate press statements from the Trust.
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Content ArticleThis is the witness statement submitted by the claimant at an employment tribunal between Dr Chris Day and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. Dr Day's claim is based on his belief that the actions of the Trust irreparably damaged his medical career and had a significant impact on his job security and other areas of life. The document contains Dr Day's statement about the following events: Misrepresenting the substance of the protected disclosures Misrepresenting formal investigation findings Cost threat detriments Events post-settlement Impact of the case on Dr Day and his family
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Content ArticleThis statement from Chair Peter Wyman addresses allegations of bullying and racism within NHS Blood and Transplant as reported in The Times on 21 August 2022. In the statement, Peter Wyman says, "I cannot overstate the importance we place in ensuring we have a strong, positive and inclusive culture so we can serve the public and patients who need us. “Issues of racism and bullying came to light in parts of our organisation two years ago after an in-depth staff listening exercise. We’ve moved on a lot in the past two years. Our actions have included providing a safe way for staff to raise and discuss issues by appointing a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, improving recruitment processes to be more inclusive, matured how we manage conflict and grievances and refreshing our code of conduct so we all know the behaviours that are expected of us. We continue to measure progress through ongoing staff engagement. “We are making progress but like every good organisation we should always be challenging ourselves to do even better. In particular, I want to ensure we have a culture that enables each of us to be our best, that encourages everyone to speak up without fear or favour if they see something wrong or something which might be done better. I want a culture where everyone is valued for who they are and what they contribute. "There can be no place for any form of discrimination, bullying or harassment.”
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Content Article
The NHS whistleblowing crisis (8 February 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Whistle blowing
Tommy Greene and David Hencke report on a number of worrying NHS dismissal cases in this Byline Times article. -
Content ArticleThis article in Computer Weekly outlines the tribunal proceedings and judgement in high-profile case brought by whistleblower Chris Day. Dr Day claimed that Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Foundation Trust had concealed evidence when a director deleted up to 90,000 emails before he was due to testify at an earlier tribunal, concerning allegedly false and detrimental public statements about Dr Day made by the Trust. Dr Day’s lengthy legal battle first began when he was a junior doctor working at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolwich’s intensive care unit in 2013, where he spoke up about under-staffing at the ICU.
