Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of whistleblowing procedures for health workers with concerns about patient safety.

I feel strongly that the National Health Service must support and welcome all staff to speak up. It is the duty of a health practitioner to speak up whenever they are concerned. Over the last decade, the Government and our system partners have delivered major initiatives in response to recommendations made to the Department. Our focus has been on making progress and this approach has improved governance, delivered more robust regulation, enabled staff to speak up more freely, protected whistleblowers, and changed the way patient safety is approached in the NHS.

The data submitted by the Freedom to Speak Up Guardians provides invaluable insight into the implementation of the Freedom to Speak Up policy, which is reported quarterly to the National Guardian’s Office. Over 100,000 cases have been raised with Freedom to Speak Up Guardians since 2017.

Whilst there is more to do to remove detriments, there are signs that the improvements to speaking up are valued, for example, over 25,000 cases were brought to Freedom to Speak Up Guardians throughout 2022/23, a 25% increase on the previous year. 19% of cases reported in 2022/23 involved an element of patient safety or quality, up from 18.8% in 2021/22.