i just did
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8246096.stm
A nurse who was struck off the register for secretly filming care for the elderly at a Brighton hospital has been nominated for a national award.
you can vote here
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Vote for a whistleblower
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Posted 2 years ago #
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Done.
Interestingly ( or not) I think what she did was wrong in terms of patient confidentiality but striking off is too sever a penalty - a warning would have been right IMO
Posted 2 years ago # -
That must have been one BFO ugly tree the day she was born.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I agree with TJ.
Its not so much her actions that I applaud, but the BMA have made themselves look like a closed shop with a self interest in concealing short comings in the service. So I have voted for her in protest.
Posted 2 years ago # -
my reasoning too, the BMA will only ever strike off a medic if they are publicaly exposed likewise they will turn on anyone who betrays the club
Posted 2 years ago # -
Its not so much her actions that I applaud, but the BMA have made themselves look like a closed shop with a self interest in concealing short comings in the service.
Just to put the record straight, she was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) not the BMA (British Medical Association) which is for doctors.
As a Safeguarding of Vulnerable Persons trainer I agree with her sentiments but there were other routes and devices she could have used to get her voice heard, including going to the NMC, the Police, Social Services, her MP etc. By secretly filming patients in her care she breached the duty of trust she had towards those patients and was not the way to get the situation changed. I will therefore not be voting for her.
Posted 2 years ago # -
thanks for the correction - I was being lazy and failed to check the name of the body. oops.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Done. She did the right thing, after all the normal chanels with there vested interests and self protecting actions would sooner have mistreatment than do anything. One day I(we)could(will) end up one of those places.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Lets look at this clearly though, she was approached by a film crew and asked to do the filming (undoubtedly for cash)? Or did she call in a film crew? It doesnt say she filmed them herself with her own camera and tried to expose people. I'm willing to bet she was approached by the producer and asked to help out if she didn't like the conditions. There's a big difference.
Posted 2 years ago # -
and in response to your post jova, I would suggest that while her choice of the route for change might be controversial it was probably far more effective at precipitating change quickly than any of the more othodox ones that you mention. And also probably more effective at getting around the buck passing, absolution of responisbility and evasiveness that those bodies would have deployed rather than get to the bottom of her complaint.
In that respect, then her duty of car in terms of privacy to any individual patient pales in significance when held up againt her duty of care in clinical terms for all of the patients in the home then and to come.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Sorry Stoner disagree.
If you read the back story you will discover that she made no attempt to follow the correct Whistle blowing procedure. If she had done so and met with the sort of evasion that you talk about, and which I know occurs, then she might get a bit more sympathy from me but she didn't.
In an organisation of that size it takes no more than three steps to reach a point where whistleblowing becomes possible and supportable, she appears even not to have got to step one.
Agreed that it highlighted the issues within the Trust and that in itself is a good thing but she failed in her duty to bring the failings to the attention of the proper authorities and colluded with the Panorama programme makers. For that she received the punishment she deserves.
Posted 2 years ago # -
whilst you are of course right in terms of protocol your view takes no consideration of her experience either of other whisleblowing attempts she may be aware of or of her trust and faith in the mechanisms in a Trust that allowed those clinical conditions to arise in the first place.
There's sufficient evidence (see Private Eye fortnightly) of organisations failing to respond to whistleblowing when they are handled internally to give anyone reservations about following reporting protocol. That inability to encourage trust and respect is a failure of the organisation and the system as much as the individuals unorthodox decision.
Posted 2 years ago # -
there is a lot more to this than meets the eye
- she did not follow any of the proper channels proir to starting her filming
- she was recruited by Panorama, to go and get a job on an elderly people's ward and get some juicy footage.
- she got some juicy footage, but not that much really (the programme actually had very little real content, they strung it out as much as they could though)
- the programme took the tone that it was all the fault of uncaring, lazy, impatient nurses. The reality is that the issue is with underfunded, understaffed wards and poor management. She did her nursing colleagues a massive dis-servicePosted 2 years ago # -
takes no consideration of her experience either of other whisleblowing attempts she may be aware of or of her trust and faith in the mechanisms
Having read this extensively as an object lesson for discussion in training courses, I found that she made no attempt at all to follow the internal procedures for reporting her concerns.
She claimed that she had discussed it on only one occasion with her line manager but took the matter no further when he/she failed to do anything.
I also read the Trust's Internal Reporting and Whistle Blowing policies which she should have followed and didn't which would had given her the chance to 'Whistle Blow' in a very short time frame. She also never claimed that she had tried to raise concerns previously so this appears to be the first instance and she failed by any measure.
[Pedant]To clarify the terminology in use, which is very emotive, following Internal Reporting Procedures is not 'Whistle Blowing' it is doing what should be done. The act becomes 'Whistle Blowing' when someone divulges information under the protection of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, where, if their concerns are found to be legitimate, they will be protected from action taken against them by the people they report.
Like many other things the term 'Whistle Blower' has been hijacked and is applied to anyone who exposes what they believe to be wrong doing whether they follow the correct procedures or not.[/Pendant]
Posted 2 years ago #
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