NHS
Week in and week out, staff blow the whistle across the NHS. Few will think of themselves as whistleblowers, knowing that they are just doing their job. This is a welcome change from the culture that bedevilled the NHS a decade or more ago where staff were too scared to raise concerns and which allowed the scandals of Harold Shipman and the Bristol Royal Infirmary to go unchecked for so long.
While every day across the NHS people are now raising whistleblowing concerns, both staff and organisations still want independent advice to help ensure this can be done safely and responsibly. Recognising this, the Department of Health put out a competitive tender for bodies to provide whistleblowing support to the NHS in England. PCaW won the tender and is delighted to be able to continue to work with staff, managers and professionals across the NHS.
Whistleblowing to protect patients 232 nurses successfully blew the whistle and saved patients from harm. This is one of the findings from a survey of nurses we conducted with Nursing Standard. Of 752 responses 87% said they would blow the whistle next week even if they had suffered reprisals in the past. The good news is that nurses say the culture is improving year on year but 47% still said the concern was handled badly. Where a trust promotes whistleblowing well 67% of nurses say the concern was handled well. In trusts where whistleblowing is not promoted this figure collapses to 16%. Click here for our summary of the results and click here for the survey results.
We recently made a submission to the Department of Health's Responsible Officers and their duties consultation. Click here for more information.
For more information about our work in this area, see PCaW’s work in the NHS
