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Found 317 results
  1. News Article
    The number of concerns reported by NHS England staff through the freedom to speak up process almost tripled last year, the organisation’s latest board papers have revealed. There were 152 cases received by the internal freedom to speak up guardians in 2021-22 compared to 56 in 2020-21. This year 54 cases were received in quarter three alone. The most common concerns are related to allegations of bullying and harassment. These accounted for nearly 40% of the total. People and team management concerns accounted for a third of FTSU cases. Within the latter, there were sub-themes of breakdown in relationships, failure to offer role models and sanctioning or ignoring poor culture. This week’s report also set out the NHSE FTSU guardian’s next steps. These include appointing a lead guardian, finalising a strategy and continuing to engage with Health Education England and NHS Digital staff as they are brought into NHSE next year. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 October 2022
  2. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has commissioned an independent review into handling of a high-profile whistleblower case, and a wider internal review of how it responds when it is given “information of concern”. The independent review will be led by Zoë Leventhal KC of Matrix Chambers and will consider how the regulator handled “protected disclosures” from University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust surgeon Shyam Kumar, alongside “a sample of other information of concern shared with us”. Mr Kumar won a tribunal against the CQC earlier this month, which found he was unfairly dismissed as a special advisor on hospital inspections after raising serious patient safety concerns. Between 2015 and his dismissal in 2019 Mr Kumar wrote to senior colleagues at the CQC with a number of concerns within his trust around bullying, patient harm and the quality of CQC hospital inspections. The tribunal drew particular attention to the two whistleblowing disclosures made by Mr Kumar about the CQC itself, which it found “clearly had a material influence on the decision to dismiss”. The CQC said in an announcement today that the independent review would aim to determine whether it took “appropriate action” in response to the information disclosed in Mr Kumar’s case and others. It will include consideration of whether the ethnicity of the people raising concerns impacted on decision making or outcome and is expected to conclude by the end of the year. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 September 2022
  3. News Article
    A whistleblower nurse who was sacked after warning that the workload on NHS staff had led to a patient’s death has been awarded hundreds of thousands of pounds. Linda Fairhall, who had an “unblemished” career as a nurse for almost 40 years, was suspended and then sacked in 2016 after raising concerns about patient safety. The 62-year-old nurse, from Billingham, has now been awarded a payout in excess of £462,000, her lawyers have said. It is thought to be a record for lost salary and remedies. Ms Fairhall had been a nurse at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust. She started working with the NHS in 1979 and had been overseeing a team of about 50 district nurses in Hartlepool when she was suspended. In 2020, Ms Fairhall successfully challenged her employer's decision to dismiss her. Though the trust tried to appeal the decision last year, the appeal court found in her favour again – saying the tribunal had reached “an unimpeachable decision” that she was dismissed for whistleblowing. The trust says it is continuing to learn lessons and implement positive change. She said: "If it changes things for others then it will be worthwhile. I'm relieved it's over. Read full story Source: The Northern Echo, 14 June 2022
  4. Content Article
    In this blog, Steve Turner reflects on why genuine patient safety whistleblowers are so frequently ignored, side-lined or victimised. Why staff don't speak out, why measures to change this have not worked and, in some cases, have exacerbated the problems. Steve concludes with optimism that new legislation going through Parliament offers a way forward from which everyone will benefit.
  5. Content Article
    On 24 August 2022, the Employment Tribunal found that Mr Shyam Kumar, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon employed at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMB), had been disengaged from his role as a Specialist Advisor within the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on account of having made “protected disclosures” to the CQC. This means he had raised concerns with CQC about the health of patients and other important issues and had done so in the public interest. The Employment Tribunal found that the fact that he had raised these various concerns with CQC had materially influenced its decision to disengage him. It awarded him £23,000 in damages for injury to feelings, on account of what it described as “the inevitable impact” of CQC’s actions upon Mr Kumar’s reputation among his peers and the shock, confusion and concern it caused to him. The CQC has accepted these findings and apologised to Mr Kumar. CQC’s Chief Executive, Ian Trenholm, issued a public statement on 6 September 2022 about what occurred, including a recognition of the importance of the concerns Mr Kumar raised, the importance of the information raised by staff and the public generally, and the “vital role” played by Specialist Advisors in CQC’s inspections. Following this, Zoe Leventhal KC was appointed by CQC’s Executive Board to carry out an independent review into whether CQC took appropriate action as a regulator in response to the protected disclosures that Mr Kumar made, and whether it dealt appropriately with a sample of other instances where concerns have been raised with CQC.
  6. Content Article
    The concerns that health and care workers and the public share with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about health and care services are critical to its work. It is also vital that CQC listens to its own staff. This review explores whether there are areas of culture or process within CQC that need to be improved in relation to listening, learning, and responding to concerns. The review focused on these key areas: Organisational findings Reviewing how well we listen to whistleblowing concerns. Reviewing our Freedom to Speak Up policy. Learning from the tribunal case. Reviewing how we listen to our staff. Reviewing the expectations and experiences of people who raise concerns with us.
  7. Content Article
    Whistleblowing is synonymous with the exposure of wrongdoing by informed insiders, and is recognised by organisations and governments as an important and positive act in the fight against crime, corruption and cover up. This report was produced by WhistleblowersUK as secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Whistleblowing and sets out the case for an Independent Office of the Whistleblower. It outlines how this can address the failure of the UK to make whistleblowing work for society. Working with groups of experts and specialists including those from academia and law from around the world, the APPG has drawn up the “Whistleblowing Bill”.
  8. Content Article
    It's now a decade since the Francis Report, which outlined the causes of serious failures in care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The report and prior media coverage exposed a wide set of issues surrounding the culture and transparency of health care, and these topics remain of major concern today. In this article for the Nuffield Trust, Shaun Lintern has interviewed Sir Robert Francis KC about the weight of those patient stories and treatment of the NHS's staff, then and now.
  9. Content Article
    In light of NHS England recently losing an employment tribunal case against a senior black nurse on grounds of race discrimination and whistleblowing, Roger Kline casts light on learnings from the case for NHS board members and HR departments.
  10. Content Article
    The National Guardian’s Office has published Listening to Workers – the report following its Speak Up review of NHS ambulance trusts in England. The review found the culture in ambulance trusts did not support workers to speak up and that this was having an impact on worker wellbeing and ultimately patient safety.
  11. News Article
    Two clinicians who say they lost their jobs at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust after raising patient safety concerns claim the trust’s legal team brought a five-figure costs threat against them to prevent witnesses from giving evidence in a tribunal. The threat of costs liability, intended to bring the case to a halt, was made halfway through the hearing – less than 48 hours before witnesses for the trust were due to give evidence. One of the claims put forward at the tribunal hearing was that the trust had destroyed crucial evidence by deleting the email account of a former staff member. The clinicians – Samir Lalitcumar and Ahmed Ghedri – brought allegations of poor practice against current and former staff at the trust. Berkshire NHS trust claimed their allegations, including claims that the trust had deleted email evidence, were “without merit”. A fortnight into the tribunal hearing, both out-of-work medics were threatened with costs liability, known as a “drop-hands offer”, totalling more than £300,000, had they opted to proceed with their case and lost. Lalitcumar and Ghedri had brought claims of whistleblowing detriment against their former employer, Berkshire Healthcare Trust. They say they were “victimised” and unfairly dismissed as a result of having blown the whistle on dangerous care within the trust’s geriatrics services – potentially affecting upwards of 2,000 patients. Read full story Source: Computer Weekly, 7 December 2022
  12. News Article
    Whistleblowers at one of England's worst performing hospital trusts have said a climate of fear among staff is putting patients at risk. Former and current clinicians at University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Trust allege they were punished by management for raising safety concerns, a BBC Newsnight investigation found. One insider said the trust was "a bit like the mafia." The trust said it took "patient safety very seriously." It said it had a "high reporting culture of incidents" to ensure accountability and learning. Staff concerns included a dangerous shortage of nurses and a lack of communication leading to some haematology patients dying without receiving treatment, an investigation by BBC Newsnight and BBC West Midlands found. Read more Source: BBC News, 2 December 2022
  13. News Article
    Whistleblowers at one of England's worst performing hospital trusts have said a climate of fear among staff is putting patients at risk. Former and current clinicians at University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Trust allege they were punished by management for raising safety concerns, a BBC Newsnight investigation found. One insider said the trust was "a bit like the mafia". The trust said it took "patient safety very seriously". It said it had a "high reporting culture of incidents" to ensure accountability and learning. Staff concerns included a dangerous shortage of nurses and a lack of communication leading to some haematology patients dying without receiving treatment. The deaths of 20 patients in the haematology department of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is run by the trust, led to a review in 2017 by consultant Emmanouil Nikolousis. Mr Nikolousis, who left the trust in 2020, told the BBC he was shocked by the failings he found and believes patients' lives could have been saved. A report by Mr Nikolousis criticised a lack of "ownership" of patients and a lack of communication among senior clinicians. In some cases this led to patients dying without having received treatment, he said. "Certainly there should have been different actions done," he said. "They could be saved. Certainly, when you don't have an action done, then you don't really know the outcome." Mr Nikolousis said he felt he had no option but to quit after his findings were ignored and his position was made "untenable". He left the NHS after 18 years. "They were trying, as they did with other colleagues, to completely sort of ruin your career," he said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 December 2022
  14. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has hired two independent whistleblowing champions, Joy Warmington and Arpita Dutt, to oversee a major review of how it listens to concerns. The CQC previously announced it had appointed Zoe Leventhal KC, of Matrix Chambers, to lead the first phase of the review, which is considering how the CQC handled protected disclosures made by Shyam Kumar, an orthopaedic surgeon at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust, and whether ethnicity “played any part in the management of those disclosures”. On Friday it issued details of the second phase of the work, including that it had brought in two outside experts, and long-time champions of whistleblowers, to “help to ensure the independence and credibility of the review”. This was launched amid wider concerns about how it responds to whistleblowing concerns in the service and among its own staff, including potential discrimination and also comes as the CQC itself seeks to begin a major restructure. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 November 2022
  15. News Article
    Whistle-blowers have described neglect, patient-on-patient assault and staff who bully colleagues and sleep on the job at a troubled mental health ward. Sources told a BBC investigation that a patient of 25-bed, mixed-gender Hill Crest Ward in Redditch, Worcestershire, suffered a broken jaw during one clash. They also claimed three nurses were "forced out" amid bullying behaviour. The NHS trust that runs Hill Crest said it believed changes there were having a positive impact. Accounts have been corroborated via five independent sources to whom the BBC spoke. They follow reports earlier this year of a fire and an incident in which staff locked themselves in an office when a patient ran around armed with boiling water and sugar. Additionally, one patient has provided the BBC with images alleged to show the effects of her battering herself out of desperation - without staff intervening. Sources also described staff being bullied, with one saying a nurse who particularly suffered had her resignation letter read out and mocked by tormentors. Sources independently complained of the workplace culture, with the BBC aware of explicit images bearing lewd comments about colleagues. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 November 2022
  16. News Article
    A whistleblower at a mental health trust criticised over the deaths of three teenagers has said bosses ignored workers when they raised concerns. Christie Harnett and Nadia Sharif, both 17, and Emily Moore, 18, who were friends, all took their own lives within eight months of each other. The whistleblower said agency workers fell asleep on duty at Middlesbrough's West Lane Hospital and staff struggled "to keep children alive". The trust has apologised for failings. Reports into the women's care found 120 failings at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV), which ran the hospital, and other agencies. Speaking after the reports were published, the health trust worker, who did not wish to be identified, told the BBC staff were "ignored" when they tried to warn bosses about conditions in the hospital. "Staff repeatedly raised concerns with managers, some of the time we just didn't have enough staff to keep the children safe," the worker said. "We warned them something serious was going to happen, but they just ignored us. "Senior managers looked at numbers, rather than the skillset that staff actually had. "The agency staff would sometimes fall asleep on duty or watch the telly rather than engage with patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 November 2022
  17. News Article
    Lawyers acting for an NHS trust are being investigated over “gagging” clauses proposed in a settlement agreement with a whistleblower who raised concerns that mistakes by paramedics in the deaths of patients were being covered up. In June, the then health secretary, Sajid Javid, announced an NHS review into “tragic failings” by North East Ambulance Service after Paul Calvert went public with claims that reports into deaths were doctored to cover up failings by staff. The Guardian has learned that NEAS’s lawyers, Ward Hadaway, are also under scrutiny – by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) – over the terms proposed by the trust for his exit agreement. The agreement, offering him £41,000 in compensation, initially included confidentiality clauses relating to future disclosures. A SRA investigation does not mean there has been wrongdoing and it does not confirm or deny whether it is examining a solicitor. However, the Guardian understands that the regulator has been in contact with Calvert about the proposed agreement. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 November 2022
  18. News Article
    A nurse in the US sued Louisville, Ky.-based Kindred Healthcare this week, alleging the organisation fired him in retaliation for raising patient safety concerns. Sean Kinnie worked as an intensive care unit nurse at Kindred Hospital-San Antonio. Mr Kinnie claims he was suspended twice and then fired after leaders at the 59-bed transitional care hospital learned he anonymously reported patient safety concerns to The Joint Commission in November 2019 and January. Mr Kinnie said issues related to inadequate staffing and unsanitary care environments put patients in "grave danger," according to the lawsuit. He also said the hospital created a culture in which employees were afraid to stand up for patients for fear of retaliation from management. In January, Mr Kinnie told the hospital's chief clinical officer Sharon Danieliewicz that he was the staff member who reported the patient safety concerns to The Joint Commission. Mr. Kinnie claims he faced increased scrutiny after this disclosure and was ultimately fired Feb. 24 for violating facility policy. Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 24 August 2020
  19. News Article
    Lawyers acting for whistleblowers have told MPs and peers that they can feel intimidated to raise concerns over non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) because of the threat of retaliation. Whistleblowers themselves have also accused employers’ law firms of using underhand tactics in employment tribunal cases, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing said it would move on to look in more detail at the role of lawyers. The findings came in the group’s first report – focusing on ‘the voice of the whistleblower’ – which found that, although the UK “remains a leading authority on whistleblowing legislation”, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) needed “a radical overhaul”. Read the full article here.
  20. News Article
    Over 90 civil society groups and individual signatories are calling on all public authorities and private sector organisations to protect those who expose harms, abuses and serious wrongdoing during the COVID-19 crisis. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 emergency, worrying reports concerning hospitals and public authorities retaliating against healthcare professionals for speaking out about the realities of COVID-19 have emerged worldwide, from China to the United States. Transparency International urges decision-makers at the highest level to resist the temptation to control the flow of information and instead offer assurances to individuals who witness corruption and wrongdoing to blow the whistle. Marie Terracol, Whistleblowing Programme Coordinator at Transparency International said: “The need for transparency and integrity, heightened in this time of crisis where abuses can cost lives, illustrates the essential role of those who speak up in the public interest." “National governments, public institutions and companies should listen to workers and citizens who come forward and report abuses they witness and protect them from retaliation, including in countries which still do not offer robust legal whistleblower protection. If people feel they can safely make a difference by speaking up, more instances of abuses will be prevented and addressed, and lives might be saved.” Read full story Source: Transparency International. 22 April 2020
  21. News Article
    Doctors have warned that a “culture of fear” in the NHS may prevent life-saving lessons being learned about COVID-19 after a leading hospital consultant emailed scores of staff saying those responsible for “leaks” would be found and fired. Dr Daniel Martin OBE, head of intensive care for serious infectious diseases at the Royal Free hospital, emailed a report to colleagues at the peak of the pandemic with a note claiming that the trust would “track any leaks to the media” and then “offer you the chance to post your P45 on Facebook for all to see.” The email, which described journalists at one respected newspaper as “parasites”, was sent to dozens of nurses and junior doctors. It has been examined by Liberty Investigates, the investigative journalism unit of the civil rights group Liberty, and the Guardian, after being shared by a recipient who said they found the language “intimidating”. Whistleblowers UK, the non-profit group, said it had been made aware of the email by a separate individual who was also concerned about its contents. The Royal Free London trust said the email was “badly worded” and did not reflect trust policy. However, the trust said it was an open and transparent organisation that “does everything it can to encourage our staff to raise concerns and, if necessary, whistleblow”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 June 2020
  22. News Article
    More than 170 carers have called a whistleblowing helpline since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a report that highlights the voices of frontline workers and lays bare a catalogue of safety concerns. Compassion in Care, which operates the helpline for care workers, says it is seeing the whistleblowing process move at “unprecedented speed” as the coronavirus crisis unfolds, with many concerns being ignored. With the coronavirus death toll mounting in care homes, the charity’s report flags the “horrendous” unsafe conditions workers are facing amid concerns over lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), as well as the impact on carers’ mental health. One whistleblower likens the situation to a “war zone” with people struggling to breathe, while another describes the pain of not having the time, because of the overwhelming workload, to even hold distressed residents’ hands. In a new report, titled When the Silence Wins, Compassion in Care’s founder, Eileen Chubb, who is herself a former care whistleblower, writes: “During this crisis I have experienced the whistleblowing process moving at unprecedented speed, at such a high-volume and involving whistleblowing issues that are without exception extremely serious." “What is emerging from these cases is a lack of action by employers in response to genuine concerns." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 May 2020
  23. News Article
    A London NHS trust has been ordered to pay a leading heart doctor more than £870,000 after he was sacked for whistleblowing about safety concerns following a patient’s death. Dr Kevin Beatt, one of the UK’s most respected consultant cardiologists, was fired from Croydon Health Services in 2012 after reporting staff shortages, inadequate equipment and workplace bullying at the trust. The tribunal heard Dr Beatt’s dismissal “had a devastating effect on his career and his wellbeing”. He told the Evening Standard: “I was forced into a position where I lost my career for trying to highlight dangerous practices in the NHS. It has taken seven years to get to this point, which is just appalling. It has been a huge ordeal and I have the greatest sympathy for any whistleblower who has to go through something like this.” Read full story Source: Evening Standard, 11 March 2020
  24. News Article
    Executives in charge of the health secretary’s crisis-hit local hospital are facing calls to step down after The Sunday Times raised serious questions about attempts to cover up catastrophic medical mistakes. West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds had placed Dr Patricia Mills, one of its most senior consultants, under disciplinary investigation after she had voiced concerns about blunders that had killed one patient and left another seriously brain-damaged. A number of doctors have claimed that a bullying management culture has led to staff being too afraid to speak up about patient safety concerns at the hospital. Executives were accused of being obsessed with maintaining the hospital’s “outstanding” status in annual Care Quality Commission. One of the governors said their were "frustrations and concerns" among his fellow council members that they were being kept in the dark by the hospital's executives. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Sunday Times, 8 March 2020
  25. News Article
    A senior NHS nurse was fired after warning the increased workload on her pressured staff had contributed to a patient’s death. Linda Fairhall, 60, had an unblemished record of almost 40 years’ service when she turned whistleblower at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS trust. In 2015 she raised concerns over a new requirement for district nurses to monitor patients’ prescriptions. She said it meant a sudden increase of around 1,000 extra visits a month for her hard-pressed team of 50 nurses with no extra resources. Over the next 10 months she reported 13 matters, alleging the health or safety of patients and staff was being or was likely to be put at risk. After a patient died in 2016 she claimed it may have been prevented if her concerns had been addressed. She told the trust’s care group director Julie Parks she wished to start the formal whistle-blowing procedure. Soon after she was suspended over allegations of potential gross misconduct relating to her leadership, and then sacked. Dr Henrietta Hughes, the UK’s national NHS guardian, said: “Workers who speak up should be thanked for doing so and the organisation should demonstrate they are taking action to address the issues raised.” North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust said it will appeal the decision. Read full story Source: The Mirror, 2 March 2020
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