Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Whistleblowing'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 317 results
  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. News Article
    A senior district nurse who was unfairly dismissed after blowing the whistle over valid safety concerns has told how the ordeal has left her life in "chaos" and she feels forced to quit the profession for good. Linda Fairhall, who had worked at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust for 38 years, has spoken to Nursing Times about her experiences after she successfully challenged her employer's decision to sack her. Between December 2015 to October 2016, Ms Fairhall raised 13 concerns to the trust regarding staff and patient safety. At the time, she was managing a team of around 50 district nurses in her role of clinical care co-ordinator. Read full story (paywalled) Source: Nursing Times, 17 February 2020
  4. News Article
    A trust unfairly dismissed a senior nurse after she tried to invoke its formal whistleblowing policy, an employment tribunal has ruled. North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust had suspended Linda Fairhall for 18 months without a “meaningful or adequate” explanation prior to her dismissal, the judgment said. Ms Fairhall, who led a team of 50 district nurses in Hartlepool, reported on the trust’s risk register that a “change in policy” by the local authority had directly led to increased workloads for her staff. The change meant staff had to monitor patients who had been prescribed medication “so as to ensure the correct medicines were being taken at the correct time”, the judgment said. She reported numerous concerns to senior management between December 2015 and October 2016, amounting to 13 protected disclosures according to the tribunal, ranging from work-related stress, sickness, absenteeism and a need to retrain healthcare assistants. A patient’s death triggered a meeting involving her and senior managers, which she said could have been prevented had her earlier concerns “been properly addressed”. Ms Fairhall told care group director Julie Parks she wanted to initiate the formal whistleblowing policy on 21 October 2016, before going on annual leave a few days later. When she returned, she was told she had been suspended for 10 days. The judgment, handed down at Teesside Justice Hearing Centre and published last week, added: “No reasonable employer, in all the circumstances of this case, would have conducted the investigation in this manner.” The judgment said the tribunal believed the principal reason for her dismissal was because she had made protected disclosures. It upheld her claim that her dismissal was automatically unfair. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 February 2020
  5. News Article
    Concerns have been raised that NHS ambulance staff are being "silenced" over bullying allegations. Hundreds of East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) employees reported bullying in 2018, while 28 non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) have been issued since 2016. The GMB union said the figures showed a "heavy-handed culture". The service said it took bullying and harassment "extremely seriously" and had policies to prevent such behaviour. EEAS faced scrutiny in November when it emerged three members of staff died in 11 days. One, Luke Wright, 24, is believed to have taken his own life. An independent investigation, which dealt in part with bullying claims, has been carried out with the results reported to the trust in January. The 28 NDAs had been made in cases where bullying, harassment or abuse by colleagues had been reported, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These involved an individual agreement, often with a payment, which prevented the person speaking about their case. In the latest staff survey from 2018, 23% of staff reported bullying, up from 21% in the previous year. The GMB said NDAs were seen as a "method of silencing rather than resolving" and called on the trust to discuss more meaningful ways of dealing with problems. Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 February 2020
  6. News Article
    A police investigation has been launched into an alleged assault against an elderly patient with Alzheimer’s by NHS staff at the troubled East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. The Independent can reveal nurses and carers at the William Harvey Hospital have been suspended after being filmed by hospital security staff for eight minutes allegedly holding down the man’s arms and legs as well as his face while they inserted a catheter. The trust has confirmed it has launched an investigation and alerted police after the incident on 15 December on the Cambridge J ward at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford. A spokesperson “apologised unreservedly” for the incident and said it was being treated with the “utmost seriousness”. A whistleblower spoke out to The Independent about the incident, fearing it was being covered up by the trust after staff were told “don’t discuss it, don’t refer to it at all”. The senior clinician said they had decided to go public after the “horrific” incident because of the trust’s toxic culture and concerns for the welfare of other patients on wards. Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 February 2020
  7. News Article
    A whistleblower raised the alarm over patient safety at West Suffolk Hospital because of concerns about the behaviour of a doctor who had been seen injecting himself with drugs, the Guardian has revealed. The incident had already prompted internal complaints from senior staff at West Suffolk hospital, but the whistleblower decided to take matters a step further when the same doctor was later involved in a potentially botched operation. The whistleblower then wrote to relatives of a dead patient and urged them to ask questions about the conduct of the doctor and his background. When they did this, the hospital launched a widely criticised “witch-hunt” in an attempt to find out the identity of the leaker. The doctor’s drug use, which the trust has never acknowledged until now, helps explain why it demanded fingerprint and handwriting samples from staff – tactics which the NHS regulator roundly condemned in a hard-hitting report last week. Read full story Source: Guardian, 5 February 2020
  8. News Article
    NHS Trusts have spent nearly £20 million in four years battling whistleblowers, defending claims of workplace discrimination and fighting employment disputes, the Sunday Telegraph can disclose. Data obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) has revealed that a minority of healthcare trusts, often advised by the same law firms, are repeatedly running up huge legal bills. Former health minister Sir Norman Lamb said some of the NHS employment cases he has witnessed in the last eighteen months involved ‘scandalous’ uses of public money. “It is not all NHS trusts in the country, but there are a small number where the culture is clearly wrong,” said Sir Norman. Commenting on the findings, Tim Farron, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has fought for whistleblowers in his own constituency, said: “Millions of pounds of tax payers’ money is being spent across our health service by NHS Trusts defending their actions in employment tribunals in cases of discrimination and unfair dismissal. It is only right that questions are being asked." Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 1 February 2020
  9. News Article
    The hospital at the centre of a whistleblowing inquiry has been downgraded by the care watchdog and issued with a warning notice amid concerns over leadership and patient safety. West Suffolk Foundation Trust has been rated requires improvement by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in a damning report having previously been rated outstanding since 2017. The trust, whose Chief Executive Stephen Dunn received a CBE for services to patient safety in 2018, has faced criticism after bosses threatened senior doctors with a fingerprint and handwriting analysis to try and identify a whistleblower. In a new report published today, the CQC inspectors said they had significant concerns about the safety of mothers and babies in the trust’s maternity unit and the criticised the culture of the trust leadership referencing what they called “threatening” actions. In the West Suffolk hospital maternity unit the CQC found staff had not completed key safety training, did not protect women from domestic abuse, and staff did not always report safety incidents. They also found maternity staff were not taking observations and the unit lacked enough staff with the right qualifications to keep women safe. The trust was issued with a warning notice by the trust demanding it make improvements before the end of this month. On the trust leadership the CQC report said: “The style of executive leadership did not represent or demonstrate an open and empowering culture. There was an evident disconnect between the executive team and several consultant specialities." Read full story Source: The Independent, 30 January 2020
  10. News Article
    The government has ordered an urgent inquiry into the local hospital of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, after the Guardian revealed its unprecedented “witch-hunt” for a whistleblower. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has told NHS England to commission a “rapid review” of the actions of bosses at West Suffolk hospital. They are under fire for demanding that staff give fingerprints and samples of their handwriting to help identify who wrote to a family alerting them to failings in care that contributed to a patient’s death. Unusually, the investigation has been instigated by Edward Argar, a junior minister at the DHSC, because Hancock and another health minister, Jo Churchill, are both local MPs who have close ties to the hospital. Argar has made clear to NHS England that the inquiry must be undertaken by independent experts, given those existing relationships. Announcing the review, Argar made clear that he wanted hospital personnel to speak openly. “I want all staff to feel that they can speak up and have the confidence that anything they raise will be taken seriously,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 January 2020
  11. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) missed multiple opportunities to identify abuse of patients at a privately run hospital and did not act on the concerns of its own members, an independent review has found. Bosses at the CQC have been criticised in an independent report by David Noble into why the regulator buried a critical report into Whorlton Hall hospital, in County Durham, in 2015. His report published today said the CQC was wrong not to make public concerns from one of its inspection teams in 2015. “The decision not to publish was wrong,” his report said, adding: “This was a missed opportunity to record a poorly performing independent mental health institution which CQC as the regulator, with the information available to it, should have identified at that time.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 January 2020
  12. News Article
    Hospital bosses have been accused of launching a witch hunt to find a whistleblower who told a widower about blunders in the treatment his wife received. The row emerged as an inquest began into the death of Susan Warby who died five weeks after bowel surgery. The 57-year-old died at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds after a series of complications in her treatment. Her family received an anonymous letter after her death highlighting errors in her surgery, the inquest in Ipswich heard, and both Suffolk Police and the hospital launched investigations. These investigations confirmed that there had been issues around an arterial line fitted to Ms Warby during surgery, Suffolk’s senior coroner Nigel Parsley said. Doctors were reportedly asked for fingerprints as part of the hospital’s investigation, with an official from trade union Unison describing the investigation as a “witch hunt” designed to identify the whistleblower who revealed the blunders. Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 January 2020
  13. News Article
    A hospital accused of bullying its staff is facing new claims that it failed to act on a leading doctor’s warning about a potentially fatal failure to monitor vulnerable patients, the Guardian newspaper can reveal. Dr Jonathan Boyle, the UK’s top vascular surgeon, had warned West Suffolk NHS trust that patients at risk of dying from burst aneurysms were not being safely monitored. An IT glitch meant that patients were not followed up to see how soon they would need potentially life-saving surgery. A doctor at the trust, however, says it initially repeatedly refused to take any action, raising further questions about its management. The trust initially suggested the problem was the result of senior doctors not keeping up with emails, but later accepted its IT systems were at fault. The hospital was forced to recognise that patients were potentially put at risk and took action only after a whistleblower alerted the NHS regulator. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 January 2020
  14. Content Article
    In a previous blog, 'What is a Whistleblower',[1] Hugh drew attention to negative perceptions of whistleblowers in the eyes of some people. A crossword and clues were published on the hub to emphasise how wrong such perceptions are and how damaging they can be, with serious patient safety implications.[2] This follow-up outlines the nature of the journey travelled by some NHS staff who have spoken up and the problems which still exist with NHS whistleblowing culture. It provides a link to an attached file which contains the answers to each clue. The attachment also shows the completed crossword in larger, easier-to-read, format than the small illustration in this blog. There is a further link to companion notes which expand on the answer to each clue. These notes contain more detail about the realities of speaking up. They reinforce the link between hostility towards those who speak up and an ongoing series of patient safety scandals.[7-21]
  15. Content Article
    Are Employment Tribunals the right institution to handle whistleblowing cases? This report aims to open the debate by examining the evidence. A research team from the University of Greenwich analysed Employment Tribunal judgements in England and Wales, for cases that included a Public Interest Disclosure claim, between 2015 and 2018. A total of 603 cases were included in the analysis. Included in the study were only those cases that went to at least preliminary hearing. Cases that were withdrawn before preliminary hearing were discounted.
  16. Content Article
    This blog asks: What is a whistleblower? Why do whistleblowers endure all forms of retaliation for the sake of truth? What does the whistleblower's cycle of abuse often look like? How to blow the whistle without blowing your career? What might non-disclosure agreements settlements include? What do whistleblowers say about whistleblowing? What can be done to protect whistleblowers?
  17. Content Article
    This report published by the National Guardian’s Office shows the experience of Freedom to Speak Up Guardians amid the continued pressure of the pandemic on the healthcare sector. Although the majority of guardians who responded to the survey were positive about the culture of their organisation, the results highlight a decline in factors that make it easy for staff to speak up, including support from leadership.
  18. Content Article
    The rapid review was commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement, following concerns raised by staff at The Christie Hospital in relation to the Research & Innovation department. The review makes a number of recommendations and the Trust will be developing and action plan to address these.
  19. Content Article
    Raising a concern is not always easy, but it is the right thing to do. It is about safeguarding and protecting, as well as learning from a situation and making improvements. This guide by the Royal College of Nursing is to help nurses, nursing associates, students and healthcare support workers based in the NHS and independent sector.
  20. Content Article
    This blog is prompted by a recent newspaper crossword in which one of the clues, quadruplicated, was 'Whistle-blower'. The four answers were, respectively, 'canary', 'snitch', 'telltale' and 'betrayer'. The blog draws attention to negative perceptions of whistleblowers in the eyes of some people. It emphasises how wrong these perceptions are and how damaging this can be, with serious patient safety implications. In this blog I provide a crossword counterpoint (attached below to solve), which seeks to support learning about the realities of hostility against some staff who speak up in the NHS. I will share a follow-up blog which contains the solution to this crossword and seeks to provide further education on this topic where there is so much confusion and misunderstanding.
  21. Content Article
    Peter Duffy’s first book 'Whistle in the Wind' detailed his whistleblowing to the Care Quality Commission and General Medical Council about deteriorating clinical and surgical standards in a National Health Service Trust in England. In Peter’s new book ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ he speaks about "the corrupt, disorientating and Orwellian world into which the vulnerable, naive and solitary whistleblower stumbles." What truth he speaks; in this sequel to his incredibly important exposure of whistleblowing retribution at Morecambe Bay’s NHS Trust he reveals the depths to which those trusted with IT services in the NHS will go to defame and smear an employee who dares to speak the truth. Peter’s courage and tenacity against those who have tried to destroy him provides valuable insight and a guiding light for all those who may find themselves in a similar position fighting toxic management in the NHS.
  22. Content Article
    The West Suffolk Review, commissioned by NHS England on behalf of the Department for Health and Social Care, was published last month. NHSE/I asked the West Suffolk Board to produce an action plan for the 28 January meeting of the Board of Directors. This paper summarises the current position in relation to the learning, reflection and response thus far, including the organisational development actions that have already been taken and require further embedding. It also highlights the engagement undertaken to date, and what more needs to happen, to ensure our plans are based on the priorities for staff, governors, patients and teams and can carry the confidence of stakeholders. The report, 'West Suffolk Review – organisational development plan (p. 217)', sets out nine broad themes of work, linked to the trust’s core functions, “that capture the priority areas for organisational and cultural development at WSFT in light of the learnings from the report”.  The document sets out how the trust’s governance, freedom to speak up, HR, staff voice, patient safety and other parts of its corporate infrastructure failed and contributed to a scandal.
  23. Content Article
    This study in BMJ Open considers how the usefulness of internal whistleblowing is affected by other institutional processes in healthcare organisations. The authors examine how the effectiveness of formal inquiries (in response to employees raising concerns) affects the utility of whistleblowing. The study used computer simulations to test the utility of several whistleblowing policies in a variety of organisational contexts. This study found that: organisational inefficiencies can have a negative impact on the benefits of speaking up about poor patient care where resources are limited and reviews less efficient, it can actually improve patient care if whistleblowing rates are limited including 'softer' mechanisms for reporting concerns (for example, peer to peer conversation) alongside whistleblowing policies, can overcome these organisational limitations.
  24. Content Article
    It's that time again. 'Speak Up Month' in the NHS. In this blog, I discuss the definition of 'whistelblowing' and why this is important. I believe that although the Francis Report has stimulated some positive changes, the only way to successfully move forward on this is to celebrate and promote genuine whistleblowers. This includes using the word 'whistleblowing', not a euphemism. It also needs us to involve everyone, including patients, in the changes. "Whistleblowing isn’t a problem to be solved or managed, it’s an opportunity to learn and improve. The more we move away for labelling and stereotyping the more we will learn. Regardless of our position, role or perceived status, we all need to address this much more openly and explicitly, in a spirit of truth and reconciliation." What is whistleblowing? "In the UK, NHS bodies have been guilty of muddying the waters. Sometimes implying that whistleblowers are people who fail to use the proper channels, or are troublemakers, especially when they go outside their organisation with their concerns. In fact, the Public Interest Disclosure Act makes no distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ whistle-blowers..."
  25. Content Article
    When good people raise serious concerns employers can welcome them as gold dust, as "canaries in the mine" or do the opposite. This is an unfinished account of what happened when Karen Rai, Strategic Research & Innovation Manager at The Christie Hospital NHS Trust, wrote to the Trust Chair setting out concerns about governance, financial conduct, and bullying...
×
×
  • Create New...