Protecting whistleblowers

Today, Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, has issued a message to staff in the NHS concerning whistleblowing. This is following the report published by Sir Robert Francis on the Freedom to Speak to Speak Up review. Sir Robert Francis, who published a report into the Mid Staffordshire inquiry, identified it to be an ongoing problem in the NHS, with staff being deterred from speaking up due to consequences that happen when they do.

Image: Skills on Toast

Six hundred people shared their experiences with the review and over 19,000 staff members responded to an independent online survey. They shared stories of victimisation when raising concerns, facing isolation and bullying. Others did not speak up as they feared not being listened to.

Sir Robert Francis has come up with proposals to support whistleblowers in the NHS, which includes:

• action at every level of the NHS to make raising concerns part of every member of staff’s normal working life
• a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian in every NHS trust – a named person in every hospital to give independent support and advice to staff who want to speak up and hold the board to account it fails to focus on the patient safety issue.
• a National Independent Officer who can support local Guardians, to intervene when cases are going wrong and identify any failing to address dangers to patient safety, the integrity of he NHS or injustice to staff
• a new support scheme to help good NHS staff who have found themselves out of a job as a result of raising concerns get back into work.

Image: Freedom to Speak up

These proposals aim to encourage staff to speak up and feel safe about doing so, and for all concerns to be heard and investigated properly. For more information on the review and what it means for staff in the NHS and patients, go to the Freedom to Speak Up website.