Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to ensure that junior doctors can make complaints about senior and consultant doctors (a) anonymously and (b) without repercussions to their career prospects.

The Government supports the right of staff working in the National Health Service, including junior doctors, to raise concerns and expects all National Health Service organisations to support staff that wish to do so. A National Guardian was appointed in 2016 and more than 1,000 Freedom to Speak Up local Guardians have now been appointed covering every NHS trust in England. They provide a safe place where staff members can take their concerns about both practice and behaviours in the NHS.

Speaking up about concerns is a core part of Health Education England’s Quality Framework and in addition the junior doctor contract deal which the British Medical Association agreed earlier this year strengthens existing contractual safeguards, ensuring that junior doctors can raise issues through an exception reporting process – overseen by an independent guardian of safe working.