Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer 6 May 2025 to Question 48666 on NHS: Disclosure of Information, if will he take steps to compensate NHS staff who signed non-disclosure agreements upon leaving the NHS.

The term non-disclosure agreement is not used in the National Health Service. A non-disclosure agreement is a general term used to describe any kind of legal agreement which sets out requirements, known as confidentiality clauses, that prohibit or restrict the sharing of certain information to other parties. These terms are usually in the interests of both the employer and the employee concerned. In the NHS this relates to contracts of employment and settlement agreements.

Settlement agreements, which may include confidentiality clauses, can legitimately be used for a range of employment issues that are unrelated to whistleblowing and are legally binding. Both the employer and the employee concerned must take their own legal advice before entering into such an agreement. Some settlement agreements may include a non-contractual, or special severance, payment, but not all will do so.