I had a nasty experience a couple of weeks ago. I was booted out of the Royal College of Nursing congress in Glasgow while distributing flyers promoting my Parliamentary Petition calling for a whistleblower hotline for NHS staff. The nurses were interested- my flyers went like hotcakes- but after 30 minutes I was told to leave by RCN Scotland officials insisting the call for a hotline conflicted with RCN policy
Whistleblower nurse Danni Gray, from Stoke-on-Trent Hospital, was incredulous that I was ordered to leave. Danni had come a cropper herself when she blew the whistle (her story is featured in the May edition of the “Nursing Standard”, Volume 30). (The picture shows her and I outside the SECC after ejection.)
The RCN is not the only staff association that fears having whistleblowing discussed by its members: UNISON, UNITE, RCN & BMA have all refused to allow their Scottish members to discuss the petition, which calls upon the Scottish Government to establish an independent national whistleblower hotline for NHS staff to replace the current helpline, widely derided as useless.
Because health workers in Scotland are being blocked from debating whistleblowing, I have launched a second petition to support the campaign- a petition for a Petition and is addressed to the aforementioned unions’ leaders.
The reasons unions don’t like my proposals are made clear in this petition: they give priority to relationships with NHS executive management over members well being. I aim to use public pressure to get the healthcare unions to reverse their stand and allow staff to discuss whistleblowing improvements at branch meetings.
I am calling upon the Scottish Parliament to replace the impotent National Alert Line with an effective hotline with investigatory teeth. When staff contact the current helpline, they are referred back to their trade union or manager – which more often than not has led to either nothing happening or, worse, the whistleblower being victimised. Staff surveys found only 57 per cent of staff thought it was safe to speak up and challenge the way things were done if they had concerns about quality, negligence or wrongdoing.
The new proposal would differ in that it would independently investigate reports about mismanagement and malpractice. It would explore perceived negligence or ill treatment of a patient by a member of staff. And bullying too: the 2015 NHS Scotland staff survey revealed 15% of staff are bullied by bosses or colleagues.
The Petition is shortly to go before MSPs and union support is crucial to parliamentary approval. Please help me make Scotland’s health service safer.