Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what reforms to whistleblowing procedures in the NHS have been made since the Freedom to speak up report was published in February 2015.

Following the publication of the Freedom to speak up report the Department has introduced a number of changes to help create a culture in the National Health Service where staff feel able to raise concerns and that those concerns are acted on without reprisal.

These changes include the introduction of a National Guardian for whistleblowing based in the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The National Guardian leads and supports a network of individuals within NHS trusts appointed as 'local freedom to speak up guardians'. The National Guardian will offer advice, share good practice, report on national or common themes, and identify any barriers that are preventing the NHS from having a truly safe and open culture.

Local Guardians are being appointed across the NHS to act in a genuinely independent capacity and are the first point of call for individuals who do not feel that their concerns are being dealt with appropriately through the usual systems. They will provide advice and support to staff about raising and handling concerns, and also to the trust’s Chief Executive and Board.

The Department is also strengthening protection for whistle-blowers in legislation:

- Putting in place regulations which prohibit discrimination against whistle-blowers (or applicants believed by the prospective employer to have been whistle-blowers) when they apply for jobs with prescribed NHS employers by summer 2017, subject to the parliamentary timetable.

- Imposing a duty on prescribed persons (such as the CQC and the professional regulatory bodies) to report annually on whistleblowing disclosures made to them.

- The Government has extended the definition of ‘worker’ within the whistleblowing statutory framework in the Employment Rights Act 1996 to include student nurses and student midwives, meaning those people are now afforded protection under the Public Interest Disclosure Act; our intention is to extend the definition further to include other healthcare students in 2017.

The Department has introduced a statutory duty of candour which applies to organisations that are registered with the CQC. It is designed to foster an open culture throughout the organisation, and providers are accountable to the CQC for meeting the duty of candour. Providers of care are expected to implement the new duty of candour through staff across their organisations - including educating, training and, if needs be, disciplining their staff appropriately.

Also a new Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) will become fully established by April 2017 and will investigate some of the most serious patient safety incidents each year to generate lessons that will make NHS treatment and care safer. HSIB will implement the principle of ‘safe space’; evidence submitted to safety investigations will be given entirely in confidence, such that staff will be able to speak up where things have gone wrong.