The Health Foundation response to The NHS Constitution and Whistleblowing: A paper for consultation

Download: The Health Foundation response to The NHS Constitution and Whistleblowing: A paper for consultation

Introduction

In its response to the Department of Health consultation paper, 'The NHS Constitution and Whistleblowing', the Health Foundation:

• confirms its belief that some cultural aspects of the NHS can result in staff not challenging potentially unsafe behaviour
• shares its experiences of the importance of creating a culture of safety within healthcare organisations
• sets out insights into and its expertise in changing the culture of organisations and teams which provide care.

While the Health Foundation supports the Government’s proposals to revise the NHS Constitution so that a culture of safety is built, we believe that whistleblowing provisions are only one aspect of this and that the Government should ensure that staff are listened to and their concerns taken seriously. Whistleblowing should always and every time be a last resort and while there will always be instances in which it is appropriate, the NHS should work toward making these occasions vanishingly rare.

Recommendations

Building an open and honest culture for NHS staff is as important as refining rules and policies, but the NHS also needs to recognise that its staff internalise unwritten, unspoken norms about ‘how we do things’ and that challenging others who behave unsafely – especially senior staff – can be very hard.

Guidance for the NHS could come from other safety critical industries and high reliability organisations, who work to foster attention to small details in all staff, regardless of role or seniority, so that they are always mindful and alert to possible risks.