Last week was Whistleblower Awareness Week and Whistleblowers UK and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing organised a two day event in Parliament on issues affecting whistleblowing.

I attended the two hour session aptly entitled Whistleblowing in Health care – a Lesson in Futility? It drew a wide selection of people from the UK and the Isle of Man including doctors, lawyers, judges, nurses and speak up guardians

These included Dr Chris Day , who has been fighting Lewisham and Greenwich Health Trust for ten years after reporting two avoidable deaths in the intensive care unit at Woolwich Hospital and Martyn Pitman, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, who recently lost a case against Hampshire Hospitals Trust, reporting patient safety issues after a mother died giving birth in one of their hospitals. Both cases can be found in a series of articles on my blog.

But one of the most striking contributions came from Rob Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman – an Establishment figure – and the Health Service Commissioner more familiar to my readers over the debacle in getting compensation for 3.5 million 50swomen who faced a six year delay in getting their pension.

In a short powerful speech he rightly lambasted the culture inside the NHS which is leading to the failure, ,persecution and character assassination of whistleblowing doctors and nurses who report patient safety issues.

Describing the system in the NHS as “command and control”, he described the contrast between the management of trusts boasting to him how open their institutions were only to find the opposite when he talked to people lower down the food chain dealing with the complaints.

He pleaded for a more ” collegiate NHS” where managers and staff worked together rather than against each other. he wanted ” fundamental change” in the leadership of the NHS.

But his speech also revealed how impotent his role is in handling healthcare issues. He pointed out that the Ombudsman was handicapped by outdated legislation, couldn’t deal with staff issues unlike other Ombudsmen, was unable to take any initiatives himself, and couldn’t force the NHS to make changes even he wanted them to do so. None of this does his reputation with the public any good. I have only covered one of his cases. You can read about it here. Health warning it is a very grim story and the Ombudsman could only partially investigate it.

Northern Ireland Ombudsman has greater powers

How he must envy Margaret Kelly, the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, set up under more modern legislation, who has and uses her powers to initiate investigations. A report here on my blog shows how she took on private company Capita and its failure to treat disabled people properly applying for Personal Independence Payments.

At the moment plans to get a new law to protect whistleblowers ( they are also covered by outdated legislation which trusts can use lawyers to get round its provisions) is stalled. So is any legislation to give the Parliamentary Ombudsman fresh powers or rationalise the plethora of other ombudsmen in this country. I suggested one step that could be taken in election year would be for whistleblowers to press the major parties to include a pledge to legislate in their manifestos. There is an “oven ready” bill already by Whistleblowers UK to reform the system which could be the basis for fresh change. It is time we ended talking and took some action.

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