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Found 313 results
  1. News Article
    Bosses at hospitals where police are investigating dozens of deaths have been criticised for “bullying” and fostering a “culture of fear” among staff in a damning review by the Royal College of Surgeons in England. The review focused on concerns about patient safety and dysfunctional working practices in the general surgery departments at the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal hospital in nearby Haywards Heath. But the reviewers were so alarmed by reports of harassment, intimidation and mistreatment of whistleblowers that they suggested executives at the University Hospitals Sussex trust may have to be replaced. They concluded: “Consideration should be given to the suitability, professionalism and effectiveness of the current executive leadership team, given the concerning reports of bullying.” The report comes as Sussex police continue to investigate allegations of medical negligence and cover-up in the general surgery department and neurosurgery department, involving more than 100 patients, including at least 40 deaths, from 2015 to 2021. The investigation was prompted by concerns from a general surgeon, Krishna Singh, and a neurosurgeon, Mansoor Foroughi, who lost their jobs at the trust after blowing the whistle over patient safety. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 February 2024
  2. Content Article
    On 26 January 2023, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust contacted the Royal College of Surgeons of England to request an invited service review of the Trust’s general surgery department, with a specific focus on upper gastrointestinal surgery, lower GI surgery and emergency general surgery. The request highlighted that the general surgery department was a service which had been under scrutiny for many years, with a history of internal reviews, and concerns being raised by consultant surgeons as well as other members of staff within the department. This report sets out the findings of this review.
  3. News Article
    A nurse whistleblower has described her eight years of hell as she fights the NHS over its failure to properly investigate claims she was sexually harassed by a colleague. Michelle Russell, who has 30 years of experience, first raised allegations of sexual harassment by a male nurse to managers at the mental health unit where she worked in London in 2015. Years of battling her case saw the trust’s initial investigation condemned as “catastrophically flawed” while the nursing watchdog, the Nursing Midwifery Council, has apologised for taking so long to review her complaint and has referred itself to its own regulator over the matter. With the case still unresolved, Ms Russell will see her career in the NHS end this week after she was not offered any further contract work. Speaking to The Independent she said: “If I’m going to lose my job, I want other nurses to know that this is what happens when you raise a concern. I want the public to know this is what happens to us in the NHS when we are trying to protect the public. “I have an unblemished career. They’re crying out for nurses. I’ve dedicated my life to the NHS. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 February 2024
  4. Content Article
    Panorama investigates the crisis in maternity care that is putting women and babies at risk. Whistleblowers at a trust in Gloucestershire tell reporter Michael Buchanan about the deaths of mothers and babies, the dangers of understaffing and a culture that they say has failed to learn from mistakes. The regulator, the Care Quality Commission, has said that maternity services at the trust are inadequate, and Panorama has calculated that maternal deaths there are almost double the national average. The trust says that it's deeply sorry for failings in its care and that it's made improvements to its maternity services.
  5. News Article
    Serious concerns about maternity services at an NHS trust have been revealed by BBC Panorama. Midwives say a poor culture and staff shortages at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust have led to baby deaths that could have been avoided. A newborn baby died after the trust failed to take action against two staff, the BBC has been told. The trust says it is sorry for its failings and is determined to learn when things go wrong. Concerns about two staff members, both midwives, had been raised by colleagues at the Cheltenham Birth Centre after another baby died 11 months earlier. The birth centre allowed women with low-risk pregnancies the choice of giving birth there under the care of midwives - there were no emergency facilities in the centre. In the event of complications, women should have been transferred to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, which is part of the same trust and about a 30-minute drive away. But on both occasions, the two midwives did not get their patients transferred quickly enough. The two midwives on duty for both deaths are now being investigated by their regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 January 2024
  6. Content Article
    Richard von Abendorff, an outgoing member of the Advisory Panel of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), has written an open letter to incoming Directors on what the new Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) needs to address urgently and openly to become an exemplary investigatory safety learning service and, more vitally, how it must not contribute to compounded harm to patients and families. The full letter is attached at the end of this page.
  7. News Article
    More NHS managers support regulation of their roles than oppose it, despite many fearing its implementation will be unfair or disproportionate, a survey suggests. The trade union Managers in Partnership surveyed NHS managers working at Agenda for Change band 8a and above throughout the UK late last year, collecting 291 responses. Asked whether they “in principle… support professional regulation of NHS managers”, 49% said they supported or strongly supported it. Just 19% said they opposed or strongly opposed, while the remainder were neutral. However, respondents – 22% of whom said they were already covered by a professional regulator, and likely to be nurses, doctors or finance or legal professionals – appeared sceptical about the benefits. Asked whether they thought professional regulation of NHS managers would make processes for raising concerns/whistleblowing better or worse, only 26% said it would be better. 20% said these would get worse, and the remainder said it would be “about the same”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 January 2023
  8. Content Article
    The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 came into force on 2 July 1999. The Act protects workers who disclose information about malpractice at their workplace, or former workplace, provided certain conditions are met. The conditions concern the nature of the information disclosed and the person to whom it is disclosed. If these conditions are met, the Act protects the worker from suffering detriment or dismissal due to having made the disclosure. If the conditions are not met a disclosure may constitute a breach of the worker’s duty of confidence to his employer. This legal framework has received some criticism in recent years for failing to protect some whistleblowers and there have been a number of calls for reform. This research briefing produced by the House of Commons Library, titled Whistleblowing and gagging clauses, includes: Summary Background The duty of confidentiality The legal framework Evolution of the law Proposals for reform of whistleblowing law Whistleblowing in the NHS Gagging clauses Support and advice.  
  9. Content Article
    The Right Honourable Sir Anthony Hooper was asked by the General Medical Council (GMC) on 5 September 2014 to conduct an independent review of how the GMC engage with individuals who regard themselves as whistleblowers. Here is the GMC's action plan to address the recommendations in the Anthony Hooper’s review.
  10. Content Article
    In a video and article published in Trends in Urology and Men's Health, Peter Duffy shares his experience of what it is to be a whistle-blower in the NHS, in the context of historical scandals of UK healthcare and whistleblowing, examining the roles of the NHS itself, the regulators and the law in the ensuing events.
  11. News Article
    An "evil" nurse who drugged patients on a stroke unit for an "easy shift" and a healthcare worker who conspired with her have been jailed. Catherine Hudson, 54, was found guilty of giving unprescribed sedatives to two patients at Blackpool Victoria Hospital in 2017 and 2018. She was also convicted of conspiring with Charlotte Wilmot, 48, to give a sedative to a third patient. Hudson was jailed for seven years and two months. Wilmot was sentenced to three years. Evidence during the trial highlighted the "dysfunctional" drugs regime on the stroke ward with free and easy access to controlled drugs and medication which led to "wholesale theft" by staff. Prosecutors described it as a "culture of abuse" after police examined WhatsApp phone messages between the co-defendants and other members of staff. The pair were investigated after a student nurse witnessed events while on a work placement on the stroke unit and told senior managers in November 2018, who called in police. The whistleblowing nurse, who the prosecution had asked not to be named, told officers she had concerns over the use of insomnia medication Zopiclone, which can be life-threatening if given inappropriately. She said Hudson had told her the patient had a Do Not Resuscitate Order in place "so she wouldn't be opened up if she died or... came to any harm". Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 December 2023
  12. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has apologised after admitting it failed to act on whistleblowing concerns “in a timely manner”. Allegations had been made to the CQC about staff at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust tampering with a patient’s record after they had died by suicide. As previously reported, the accusations by whistleblower Des McVey have sparked a review of the trust’s conduct in more than 60 suicide cases. Mr McVey says the trust only took action following media coverage and that the CQC had ignored his concerns. The regulator has now upheld a complaint from him, with operations manager James DeCothi writing to Mr McVey: “I have established that [the relevant CQC inspector] did not share your concerns with the provider in a timely manner and that our contact with you from July 2022 to June 2023 was inconsistent. I apologise on behalf of CQC for this. [The CQC inspector] has reflected on this and has asked me to offer her apologies to you also. “I can confirm that CQC have followed up the areas of concern that you have shared, and we will continue to use the information you have shared to inform future regulatory activity. I would like to thank you again for sharing this information with us.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 December 2023
  13. Content Article
    Lucy Letby was allowed to continue working with new-born babies despite her colleagues raising concerns about her for months. Her conviction highlighted how NHS executives put the reputation of the Countess of Chester NHS Trust ahead of patient safety. But what happened in Cheshire was far from a one-off. File on 4 hears from doctors with unblemished medical careers who were sacked after raising patient safety concerns. The programme follows one medic through an Employment Tribunal as he attempts to save his career, and hears the emotional, brutal toll the process takes on him. For the first time, a top doctor who won record damages talks about the extraordinary steps her managers took to undermine her. Their tactics included relocating her to an empty office with a broken chair and telling colleagues that she agreed with their assessment she was incompetent. And a former NHS executive tells the programme that trusts are more interested in “flying LGBT flags” than tackling concerns about patient safety. With widespread calls for NHS managers to be regulated, File on 4 asks who should take on the role, given the willingness of the NHS to redeploy managers found to have ignored patient safety concerns, or even punished those who dared to raise them.
  14. News Article
    A senior doctor who won a record £3.2m payout says her boss tried to "break" her after she raised concerns about how Covid was being handled. Rosalind Ranson, medical director on the Isle of Man during the pandemic, experienced months of humiliation, an employment tribunal found. Dr Ranson has given BBC News her first interview since the hearing. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 December 2023
  15. News Article
    The boss of a hospital trust being investigated by police for alleged negligence over 40 patient deaths has been accused of sending a hypocritical email urging staff to have the courage to raise concerns despite the dismissal of whistleblowing doctors. The investigation, Operation Bramber, was sparked by two consultants who lost their jobs after raising concerns about deaths and patient harm in the general surgery and neurosurgery departments of the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton. In an email to staff on Friday, the chief executive, George Findlay, said the trust was committed to learning from its mistakes. He said: “When things do go wrong, we must be open, learn and improve together. That openness is how we give people courage to raise concerns and make a positive difference to patient care.” James Akinwunmi, a consultant neurosurgeon who was unfairly dismissed by the trust in 2014 after he raised the alarm about patient safety, said Findlay’s email was “laughable”. He told the Guardian: “Whistleblowers, including myself, have done exactly what he is encouraging in the email and they were sacked for it, so you can draw your own conclusions. I suspect what they are doing is damage limitation. Instead, they should be dealing with surgeons who have been a problem for years.” Another more recent whistleblower, who did not want to be named, expressed incredulity at Findlay’s claim that he wanted to encourage staff to raise concerns. They said: “The email is hypocritical. How can staff have the ‘courage to raise concerns’ after what has happened to those who have? Those brave enough to blow the whistle about patient safety have been sanctioned, lost their job and had their lives destroyed.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 December 2023
  16. Content Article
    The first 14 minutes of this programme are focused on a Newsnight investigation into allegations of cover-up, avoidable harm and patient deaths relating to University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. At the time of broadcast, Sussex Police were investigating 105 claims of alleged medical negligence at the Trust.
  17. News Article
    Police are investigating 105 cases of alleged medical negligence at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton amid claims of a cover-up. Specialist officers from the National Crime Agency and Sussex police are looking into cases of harm, which include at least 40 deaths, in the general surgery and neurosurgery departments between 2015 and 2021. An email from Sussex police, released to The Times after a court application, revealed the huge investigation is looking into 84 cases connected to neurology and 21 related to gastroenterology. Most of the families are yet to be told that their case is among them. Officers were called in by the senior coroner after she heard of allegations made by two consultant surgeons at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest NHS organisations with 20,000 staff. The trust has been accused of bullying the whistleblowers and attempting to cover up the circumstances of the deaths. Mansoor Foroughi, a consultant neurosurgeon, was sacked for “acting in bad faith” in December 2021 after raising concerns about 19 deaths and 23 cases of serious patient harm. Another whistleblower, Krishna Singh, a consultant general surgeon, claimed that he lost his post as clinical director because he said the trust promoted insufficiently competent surgeons, introduced an unsafe rota and had cut costs too quickly. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 27 November 2023
  18. Content Article
    Whistleblowing presentation from Peter Duffy to the Association for Perioperative Practice, September 2022. York University.
  19. Content Article
    Professor Jane Somerville, emeritus professor of cardiology at Imperial College, talks about the issues facing doctors who raise concerns about patient safety issues in the NHS. She shares her views on the risks facing doctors who speak up and the ways that healthcare managers treat whistle blowers. She also highlights issues in the employment tribunal system and outlines the need to regulate NHS managers. In the video, Jane mentions the employment tribunal of Dr Martyn Pitman. Since this interview was recorded, Dr Pitman lost the case he brought for retaliatory victimisation.
  20. News Article
    The nursing watchdog will miss its target to tackle a 5,500-case backlog of complaints as referrals hit a record high. The Nursing and Midwifery Council NMC has admitted it won’t hit its pledge to cut the number of unresolved complaints against nurses and midwives to 4,000 by March 2024. The news comes as it faces questions over the way it handles complaints after The Independent revealed a number of serious allegations, including poor investigations that have led to fears of rouge nursing going unchecked. The newspaper exposes have prompted two independent reviews. Details of the first two reviews have been revealed for the first time and will look at: The NMC’s response to whistleblower concerns, including whether they were treated fairly and whether it acted fairly and reasonably. Any evidence of cultural issues which may have impacted the NMC’s response to whistleblowing. Whether concerns raised are substantiated and indicate a decision-making process by the NMC which is insufficient in protecting the public. Evidence of shortcomings in guidance and training. The senior whistleblower whose evidence prompted the review said: “The NMC has refused to change its approach to the investigations into my whistleblowing concerns to allow me to share and explain my evidence without fear of reprisal. I don’t think it is possible to draw safe conclusions about either how I have been treated or the impact of our culture on case work from reviewing only 13 of our current 5,500 open cases, and 6 closed cases and a selection of my emails.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 November 2023
  21. News Article
    The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA), a hospital doctors union, has called for an independent body to register and monitor cases where doctors raise safety concerns and for criminal charges to be brought against trusts when whistleblowers suffer harm. Naru Narayanan, president of HCSA, called for the changes after a survey found that doctors worry that speaking up about patient safety will put their careers at risk and that the creation of freedom to speak up guardians in 2016 has not increased their confidence. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 13 November 2023
  22. News Article
    Large numbers of midwives report being left feeling undervalued and afraid to speak up due to bullying and widespread staffing shortages, which some say is putting mothers’ and babies’ lives at risk, according to a new publication shared with HSJ. The Say No to Bullying in Midwifery report comprises hundreds of accounts, ranging from students, newly qualified and senior midwives, heads of midwifery, maternity support workers and more. It aims to publicise and share concerns they have raised online. The report said: “Midwives have described their experiences of toxic cultures within their workplaces, with cliques, preferential treatment, unfounded allegations and poor working conditions leading to a negative impact on their health and wellbeing, including suicide attempts and midwives leaving their job or profession. Read full story Source: HSJ, 13 November 2023 Order a copy of the report
  23. Content Article
    *Trigger warning: This report contains accounts of bullying behaviours and consequences and may trigger those who have experiences of bullying. The Say No to Bullying in Midwifery report comprises hundreds of accounts, ranging from students, newly qualified and senior midwives, heads of midwifery, maternity support workers and more. It aims to publicise and share concerns they have raised online. In the numerous accounts shared all areas of the system from CQC, CEO, HR, midwifery management, universities and the unions are described as being complicit, inadequate, disinterested and even corrupt. Accounts also refer to: Unsafe work environments Exit interviews not being performed, recorded or acted upon Staff not being valued Whistle-blowers being demonised until they leave Health and safety issues and truly evidence-based practice ignored with no lessons learned. To order your copy, follow the link below.
  24. Content Article
    In this opinion piece, BMJ journalist Clare Dyer examines how the healthcare system is grappling with the question of how Lucy Letby was allowed to get away with killing babies in plain sight for so long. She looks at culture and governance issues that meant that concerns raised by consultants were not appropriately acted on.
  25. News Article
    Dr Martyn Pitman claimed retaliatory victimisation after raising morale concerns but tribunal says it was his manner that cost him his job. A doctor has said raising whistleblowing concerns about maternity care at his hospital “cost me very dearly” after he lost his employment tribunal. Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Martyn Pitman was dismissed earlier this year from his job at the Royal Hampshire county hospital (RHCH) in Winchester, where he had worked for 20 years. He told the Southampton tribunal, which concluded earlier this month, that he had been “subjected to brutal retaliatory victimisation” after exercising his rights under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. A tribunal judgment released on Friday said there had been “unanimous” agreement that the arguments behind the whistleblowing claim “fail and are dismissed”. Read full story Source: Guardian, 29 October 2023
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