'Whistleblowers will face bullying from every side'

Readers' comments (39)

• Jacqueline Hickman | 2-Aug-2011 4:11 pm

  There is also the fear that whistle-blowers will never get work again...because word gets around, and the whistleblower becomes notorious amongst potential employers. I know people who have been put into this deplorable position as a result of trying to improve standards in their workplaces.
  

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• mike | 2-Aug-2011 5:05 pm

  You are absolutely right Jenni. The terrorising and bullying and harassment is all to real and common an occurrence for those of us who speak up about poor standards. I think however that ensuring anonymity or giving protection to whistleblowers is enough, why not sort out the root of the problem and go after those who bully and witch hunt and the organisational culture which allows it to happen (*Cough* the NMC *Cough*!)
  
  Another point, as you rightly say, is that it is all very well and good stating that concerns can be raised confidentially, but what is the point when we KNOW (and I am speaking from personal as well as observed experience here) that absolutely sod all will be done to act on those concerns raised? I still have an email from a while back, from the CQC stating they agreed with me about a particular point made about a particular issue (I won't say what for obvious reasons) but there was nothing they could do! So again, what is the bloody point? We are risking our backsides for nothing!

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• mike | 2-Aug-2011 5:07 pm

  Sorry, should have read is NOT enough above. Why don't they have an immediate edit function on here? grr!

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• Anonymous | 2-Aug-2011 6:06 pm

  nurses do not take whistleblowing lightly and do it for no reason. therefore if it was handled correctly there would be no need for anonymity. However, some of the recent whistleblowers have had their names splashed all over the media which is definitely not good for their reputation or future career.

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• mike | 2-Aug-2011 11:10 pm

  Anonymous | 2-Aug-2011 6:06 pm exactly!! Upholding confidentiality is only a one way street it seems.

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• Anonymous | 3-Aug-2011 10:06 am

  In my experience, it is not wise to speak out. I worked for one of the biggest private care home groups, for many years. When a new Manager was employed, the standards went downhill rapidly. Around one third of the staff left in the first year, due to the poor leadership. Scapegoats were found if problems arose, resulting in referrals to NMC and ISA. Many of us attempted to raise concerns diplomatically with the Manager, with no result. I then tried to speak to senior Managers, who brushed off my concerns. Eventually I decided to leave. Since then, I have applied for a couple of positions elsewhere in the company. I have never even got as far as an interview, the excuse being that they had an exceptional amount of candidates, however two of these positions remained unfilled for months. I think that speaks for itself.

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• tinkerbell | 3-Aug-2011 12:07 pm

  
  It might be a good idea to change the word 'whistleblower' to something more positive, as whistle blowing I think is now considered to have negative connotations. Having been a whistle blower in the past, I know from experience, I was viewed as 'dangerous' even amongst my own colleagues who knew abuse was going on. Some of them were the perpetrators of the abuse so I didn't expect them to throw a thank you party for me, but even those who hadn't particpated, the good guys, viewed me as some kind of 'loose canon' and distanced themselves from me. I would do the same again even though it was tough and I ended up being sent home by a manager a year or so later because of the 'strain' it placed me under. Somehow you are viewed as a 'traitor' for sticking up for the patients against your colleagues. Ultimately after a long investigation I was offered a post 'elsewhere' to remove me from the bad feeling of others, or was it? When whistleblowers are treated in this appalling way I can fully understand why they do not want to put themselves into the firing line, but if as above, all this could change, and it is already too long coming, then at last we shall be free to the do the 'right thing'. It is a sad lesson to learn that some managers really don't want to know about what goes on behind closed doors and a real eye opener for me at the time because I was naive enough to think that they would want to know. The dogs aren't barking because they are too frightened of a beating. They have probably seen other whistleblowers hung out to dry, ex-communicated and left a wreck wondering what on earth it was they did that was wrong, when they themselves would have liked to have reported the same problems also. If reporting abuse then leaves you wide open to become a victim of abuse by the people you reported the abuse to then what hope is there for people to volunteer themselves for that?. Every concern raised, wherever possible, should be resolved at the lowest level possible, but when this does not happen, then there is nothing left but to blow the whislte, and as it stands at the moment, take your lumps! What a farce.
  
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• Anonymous | 3-Aug-2011 5:51 pm

  
  Well said Tinkerbell
  I whistle blew and was made redundant because it. I went to tribunal and won my case. However the compensation did not cover the stigma and pain that I had to endure. Needless to say I had 3 years grief. I applied for more than 1000 jobs, ( at nearly every interview I was questioned regarding my case) before eventually obtained temporary contracts, and lost a lot of so called friends. I was unaware at the time of the tribunal that my details were made known to other HR Departments and that quite a few senior HR persons were present at that the hearing. Really it is hard to whistle blow, but patients could be our relatives, or even us. I have whistle blown in my present role when policies are not being adhered by managers both clinical (medical and nursing) and managerially which affects patient care and staff welfare, and where there are nurse training needs; consequently I am subject to bullying and although initiating the grievance procedure 3 years ago no actions have been taken to solve the issues. Regrettable some Hr seem to be management friendly and take the managers side when incidents occur. I have had severe scrutiny by managers on the shop floor and excessive workload being put my way . Although I consider myself to be a hard working caring nurse, I think my role will soon be terminated, according to reliable colleagues who have informed me that I will be leaving shortly. Whistle blowing, unless you really care and are able to take the stress, which is horrendous please proceed with caution.

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• Anonymous | 3-Aug-2011 6:24 pm

  I have been educated to understand and welcome criticism which can be used for improvement no matter who one is and what level one is working at in an organisation. we must recognise that none of us are perfect and we need to accept this in ourselves and others instead of feeling pressure of the need to cover this up.
  
  in good nurse training and post grad management courses one also learns to distinguish between positive and negative criticism and how to accept what is helpful and constructive and then reflect on ways this information can be used for improvement of our own practice and for the benefit of the organisation and how to recognise what is willfully intended destructive and to filter out without being hurt by it.
  
  if such training was included in all nurse, medical and management training , etc. at undergraduate level perhaps in time this would help to change attitudes and develop a more positive learning climate at work.
  
  organisations undertaking to provide healthcare are part of the service industry and need to understand their very great and serious responsibility to the public of providing excellent care to patients and striving for high quality customer satisfaction and the best way to monitor this is to encourage, listen to and use feedback from patients and those involved in the care. Their equally strong responsibilities of providing support, good conditions of employment to the staff must also be taken seriously.

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• Anonymous | 3-Aug-2011 6:26 pm

  the last sentence above should also include the duty of employers to provide further training for all their staff.

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• tinkerbell | 4-Aug-2011 10:41 am

  Anonymous | 3-Aug-2011 5:51 pm
  
  I hope you come out of all this stronger. You are a good person, you've done the best you could and no one has made it easy for you, but your conscience is clear. Don't ever doubt yourself! If only there were more like you.

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  DH Agent - as if ! | 4-Aug-2011 12:24 pm

  www.nhsconcern.org.uk - do we know, exactly how that will work ? And will it also allow patients and relatives to use it, and be publicised to them ?
  
  Anyway, what you really need is a local (within the hospital, etc) and quick, system, which allows people to raise non-personal concerns (and don't start on about clinical expertise - a different issue !) to be raised and described anonymously, and then considered and perhaps pursued by people INDEPENDENT of the 'institutional hierarchy'.
  
  I still think a group of laymen, would be perfectly capable of doing that role. Nurse emails a concern, the laymen think about it, involve some clinical expertise if necessary for advice, then 'get back' to the nurse (or, publish an anonymous concern and their assessment of it somewhere - 'a noticeboard') and, if it seems to warrant it, then those laymen, who CANNOT BE THREATENED by management or other people, have the power to raise the issues with managers if they believe that is warranted.
  
  Having just typed it, I think the 'anonymous noticeboard' idea could be hugely helpful. If other staff read of a concern which has been raised, and see the response to it, then other staff can join in, supporting either the concern, or agreeing that the concern does not need much/any action.
  
  But you need to ensure 'neutral' laymen - arms length from the managers of the institutions: and, retired clinicians, could fall into my 'lay' category - the important point, is the 'who cannot be bullied by the institution' point, and the 'neutrality'.

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• tinkerbell | 4-Aug-2011 12:46 pm

  michael
  
  good point, otherwise its just like the police investigating the police. Too subjective. Needs to be totally objective but also some one on the panel who has clinical expertise to advise the lay panel.

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• Anonymous | 4-Aug-2011 3:33 pm

  tinkerbell | 3-Aug-2011 12:07 pm
  
  Tinkerbell, I think you make a very important point indeed here:
  
  “I was naive enough to think that they would want to know."
  
  After all most of us are not highly experienced in whistleblowing, defending our case and facing the consequences which are under different circumstances in each case anyway.
  
  Maybe further training in presenting our case in an effective way which forces the report to be taken seriously, and in ways to maintain our stance against all opposition until positive action to make amends and future improvements is made on our recommendations and in consultation with all those responsible. After all we are the professionals in our own right and responsible for and expert in the work in the area of our employment whose complaints, advice and recommendations must be regarded seriously. It seems that the entire original concept of general management where managers are engaged to provide the resources for professionals to carry out their work in the most effective and expert manner has totally fallen by the wayside.
  
  I also paid with my long, successful and rewarding career for my naivety and it is only in retrospect that I realise that I was possibly used as a scapegoat, and then a second time only perceived that I was the victim of very subtle and imperceptible bullying when it was too late to rescue myself from the damaging deeds of the perpetrator.
  
  Both incidents are too long to relate here, but in the first I had recently returned to the UK from abroad and increased my scope of my experience of life considerably by being confronted by death in my family and being a carer for a long period for my widowed mother. I filled this time reading for an MSc part-time which only required my absence from home for one day a week. When my mother died, in the middle of my first year exams, I decided that it was best to carry on and attain at least one achievement after losing both parents and giving up a very successful and enjoyable career abroad. I then decided a considerable time later that I would like to do some part time nursing to keep my practice up to date and support my studies. I was pleased to be recruited for the bank of a well respected private clinic. I could work on different wards and gain experience of the current trends in the UK and this would give also help me with ideas of my future direction. However, I was somewhat disillusioned on the first few shifts by the attitudes of the staff and the way I was treated but thought this was just particular to the few wards I had worked on. Although I was highly motivated and have a long and wide range of experience I quickly discovered that I was not being delegated any nursing tasks but expected to serve meals and act as the tea lady! For the first few shifts I did not find this too much of a problem as it gave me a chance to observe the ward routine and the way some procedures were carried out from a safe distance. I was very brusquely ordered by one ward sister (an Australian and in a manner to which I am totally unaccustomed), to whom I tried to introduce myself when we first met, to take a patient to theatres for a routine op. and then found myself for the rest of the shift rushing up and down portering patients on trolleys to theatres. Her behaviour towards me continued like this for the rest of the shift even telling me to open a drawer, which she could have easily done herself and pass her a form without a please or a thank you. (Shocked though I was, submissiveness was the only way I knew how to respond in this instance and especially as the new girl wishing to make a positive impression). Again, for a while this was ok (to a limited extent) but after a while I would have preferred to engage in something rather more challenging but my requests were not even heard. I was sent on the statutory venepuncture course which I could have taught just as well myself and learned nothing new from it and then every time I tried to have the practical part of the test validated on the wards before I was allowed to take blood the answer always came back they were too busy and there was no time. They were all rushed off their feet and I was not allowed to use my skills despite the fact that I had practiced venepuncture to the required standards for the past twenty years to several patients almost daily and had inserted many Veflons and central catheters, and in addition to routine iv and portacath drug administration have also carried intra-arterial administration of chemotherapeutic drugs but all of little use here without being provided an opportunity to demonstrate these competencies.
  
  I had chatted just to a couple of nurses whilst bed making who had nothing good to say about their workplace and whilst listening, as always I take care not to engage too much in such conversations, especially as the new girl, or to divulge too much about myself. However, they both realised that I had some experience and was being underutilised. This was my first day on the ward and one of them was showing me how to use a basic piece of equipment with which I was unfamiliar only to be told off by sister because she did not think it necessary to have two nurses working together in one room!
  Then came the bombshell! I had been there two to three weeks and worked no more than five shifts when the Director of Nursing, a nun, rang me at home and told me that she did not want me to return! The only reason she gave me was that I had been heard to complain about the establishment and she could not have this in her organisation. There was no explanation as to who may have made this allegation and no offer of a meeting to discuss this further.
  
  I was shocked and stunned by this as if I had been stung by an insect and with nobody to turn to for support. I rang the RCN where I have been a member for well over twenty years for advice and they said there was nothing they could do to help as it was a private clinic (and incidentally supported by all the main UK insurance companies). All I could think of doing, and was up to doing at that time, was to write a letter explaining that to my knowledge I had not complained to anybody about the hospital (especially as I had hardly had the chance to talk to anybody) and had always held the organisation in very high esteem. I also mentioned the fact that I had lived in the town all my life and knew of their high reputation which is why I had chosen to apply for a job there. Other facts I used to support my confidence and belief in them, which I had never mentioned before, was that my father had been a much respected consultant there about 30 years previously and it is where my mother died a year prior to this incident, and where I had spent a considerable amount of time with her and had a very good relationship with the nurses who gave me a room there to sleep in for the first few nights with meals as well, which obviously we paid for.
  
  I must have been naïve as I knew nothing about scapegoating until I read a psychology textbook sometime after this and now believe this is what happened. I now believe I was used as a scapegoat to reinforce the complaints about the dissatisfaction of other nurses, possibly the two I had met in the morning, against the organisation as everybody there I noticed were afraid of speaking out or saying or doing anything wrong. Although the hospital was originally run by Franciscan nuns, besides the Nursing Director there were very few left.
  
  My next job, back in non-EU Europe was hardly more successful and where I was personally seriously affected by bullying for the first time in my life, by the Director of Nursing, after my 30 odd year nursing career. I don't take any responsibility for this, except perhaps for my unfortunate choice of these two jobs, although I have considered that I somehow invite this type of treatment, and have done much prolonged soul searching for possible reasons why this might be. However, not having found the answers, I now believe that one cannot and should not always blame oneself. Again I contacted a local trade union only to be told, as with the RCN in the UK, that they could do little as it was a private clinic. However, the director of this union was not slow in informing me that they already had 20 files with complaints from nurses who, simply because their faces did not fit with her ideals, had been coerced by her into leaving as the law did not permit her to sack them. I was advised by our team psychologist who knew her well that this was the only choice as the bullying got far worse until some had become so stressed that they made a professional error giving her grounds to fire them. The union had already supported five of these nurses before a tribunal and also offered me this type of support as well as advising me to sign on as unemployed but both of these measures declined as I didn’t want any blemishes on my CV and preferring to go my own way, however the damage was already done.
  
  On my MSc Healthcare management course I learned much about defending my ground and I would thoroughly recommend that courses on managing constructive and destructive criticism and complaints and how to pass them on effectively or whistleblowing would be a very useful in nurse training if it is not already offered.
  I believe that management and leadership courses must now be a vital and integral part of nurse training if they are to stand their ground in protecting the interests and safety of patients, managing care in team and negotiate their own employment conditions and rights. It is often overlooked that leadership should be from the bottom up as well as from the top down. Maybe there is compromise somewhere in the middle!
  
  
  

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• Anonymous | 4-Aug-2011 3:35 pm

  michael stone | 4-Aug-2011 12:24 pm
  
  just adding further complications to an already costly and complex system.
  
  how about presenting your ideas to Mr. Cameron?

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• mike | 4-Aug-2011 4:17 pm

  Michael, I do completely agree about the objective and neutral panel, however I do believe that clinical personnel should be equally represented with non clinical members.
  
  As for the anonymous message board, I don't know. I'm holding huge reservations about that. Also, isn't the fact that it is anonymous also meaning that statements or allegations cannot also be seen by the general public? I can see its potential for good, with the potential removal of the risk to people who raise concerns (and it is potential as there as of yet is no guarantee it will stay confidential or who will have access to any details). However, I can also see its potential for abuse, malicious allegations about individual Nurses are a very real and constant problem within this profession, both from the public and from other staff, and who is to stop anyone from posting anything about anyone? (This is why any allegation cannot and should not be seen by the public). Even without this system, I have seen completely false allegations made against other staff, that staff member suspended and investigated by management and the NMC, and evidence and statements supporting the accused completely ignored! There will still be no protection from that with this system.

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• Anonymous | 4-Aug-2011 4:37 pm

  the nhs needs to be an honest and open one achieved by adequate education and training of all working in it and associated with it such as the NMC, etc. to foster positive attidudes needed to provide at least adequate care. hiding behind masks of anonymity wil do absolutely nothing to achieve this and will only encourage and perpetuate negative behviour detrimental to patient care and the wellbeing of the staff.

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• tinkerbell | 5-Aug-2011 5:16 am

  Anonymous | 4-Aug-2011 3:33 pm
  
  Sounds like there has been a lot of 'professional jealously' aimed at you just because you know what you are doing. Nasty old bitch should open her own drawers!

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• Anonymous | 5-Aug-2011 8:00 am

  tinkerbell | 5-Aug-2011 5:16 am
  
  Anonymous | 4-Aug-2011 3:33 pm
  
  it was rather a lengthy way of saying, based on my own experience of what can go wrong if one is caught unawares. If one is naive about the process of whistleblowing and bullying tactics through lack of prior experience in such matters further managerial training during nursing studies especially in handling and making formal complaints could be useful.

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  DH Agent - as if ! | 5-Aug-2011 11:11 am

  tinkerbell | 4-Aug-2011 12:46 pm
  
  I have experience of the police investigating themselves - investigating is NOT the right word !
  
  mike | 4-Aug-2011 4:17 pm
  
  It is ACCESS to clinical expertise, which matters - deciding whether a problem is 'real and significant' is mainly an analytical exercise, and not usually a purely clinical one. And I said, non-working clinicians, do count as 'lay' for my purposes.
  
  My 'panels' would be authorised (by whoever set them up) to ask staff for answers to technical questions (is there a reason why it has to be done that way ?), when they needed to: I would also allow the panel to wander about 'observing behaviour in general'.
  
  I would WANT the 'notice board' - probably mainly electronic, and internet-based - to be available for both staff and patients/relatives. I would also like it to be possible for people to add comments, as is possible on NT. Because a large part of the problem, is that different people (nurses, doctors, managers, relatives, patients, cleaners, etc) see things in different ways, and therefore do not agree about what constitutes a problem, or what is a serious problem.
  
  So managers, tend to try and reduce nursing numbers if they are cash-pressed - if a nurse complained that 'there are now too few of us to do our job properly' management would invariably claim ' there are enough of you', but if patients chipped in with 'I found I had to wait ages, before a nurse could come - there are not enough' that supports the nurses, but lots of 'I never had a problem with too few nurses' supports management (and almost everyone, does have an 'easier life for me' approach to some extent) .
  
  But you can't use that for 'Fred is incompetent' - that sort of personal issue, should be open and not behind anonymity.

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