Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Anne Milton

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that confidentiality agreements do not discourage NHS whistleblowers from coming forward.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

The Department wrote to the NHS trusts most recently in January 2012 reminding them that compromise agreements should not prevent information from being disclosed in the public interest. It also said that they should satisfy themselves that their organisational policies are in line with previously issued guidance.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. She will be aware of the case of my constituent Mr Gary Walker, the former chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, who has been prevented by a confidentiality agreement from raising his concerns about the effect on patient safety of the previous Government’s targets. I want to hear Mr Walker’s concerns and my constituents are entitled to hear them. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will look into this matter and give a categorical assurance that the concerns that Mr Walker has told us about will come into the public domain.

[Anne Milton]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his supplementary question. I cannot comment on the individual details of the case, but I appreciate his concern that NHS staff could be prevented from speaking out by confidentiality agreements. Confidentiality and compromise agreements are allowed in contracts, but the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 provides that any clause in that contract or compromise agreement between employer and employee is void in so far as it acts to stop the employee making a protected disclosure.