(1) Consult your loved
ones before you blow. You will be
ostracised and probably lose your job.
(2) Test for support
among colleagues; expect them to turn their backs on you.
(3) Try and get the internal system to work
for you but see (1 and 2) before you do.
(4) Don't embellish
concerns, if anything play them down.
(5) Get legal advice;
maybe a union or professional association but see (1 and 2) above.
(6) Collect all the evidence
at your own expense and resource, not the employers; write
contemporaneous notes, assemble rock-solid, irrefutable evidence
before you blow and think about (1) and (2) before you speak.
(7) Try and stay on good terms
with people not involved but expect them to regard you as
toxic. See para (2) above.
(8) Network;
does anyone else have the same issues? But beware of (2) above.
(9) Keep your nose squeaky clean
at work. Don't have skeletons or be cynical and beware of (2)
above.
If you do all that still 'see (1)
above'.
Yes, my 9 Points are ludicrous but whistle-blowers know they
have more than a hint of reality and will tell you they've been
through them all.
'We played
the flute but you wouldn't dance,
we played
a requiem but you wouldn't weep.
We sang
but you wouldn't listen'.
I find it inconceivable that
managers don't beg their staff to tell them what is going on; implore
their people to say what they know.
But; I'm not part of the labyrinth
that is today's NHS and the job of keeping people happy; Off-Sick,
Carbuncle, CCGs, media, guidance, finance, targets that aren't called
targets but miss them and lose your job. Answering the phone to
LaLite... and supporting the front-line.
My post bag tells me; Boards on
the fifth floor who think they have a clear line of sight to the
ground floor, don't. Whistle blowing is tangled up in
fault, fear and a corrosive culture of blame. Something's gone
horribly wrong. Or has it?
Last year, every hour of every
day, someone like you
called the CQC Whistle-blower's line, roughly; 7,500 were about
standards in social care and 300 the private sector. Six
hundred were from the NHS. That's two-a-day out of 1.4m
staff. Is that a lot; reasonable, likely, tip of the
iceberg? Are they genuine or axe grinders? What
were the outcomes? I've no idea.
I am fortunate, there are few
parts of the NHS you don't invite me to look at or you write to me
about. I don't claim to be smarter or know more but by the end
of the year I'll probably have meet as wide a range of NHS people as
anyone.
And, you and I have conversations
like this 3-4 times a week. You trust me with a glimpse of what
it's like to be:
# a manager
under so much pressure to deliver
financial and performance targets you've no time to visit the front
line and see what's happening.
# on the frontline,
too busy to be aware of how short of staff
you really are and know nothing will improve if you complain
# a board member,
annealed to clinicians' shroud waving, not knowing who to
take seriously.
There's a lot of smart people
working on whistle-blowing but I just wondered what would happen if
we put together, in one room, the kind of people I meet and write to
me and quizzed them about what we should be doing.
People like Sir Robert Naylor boss
of UCH who could tell us how a huge Trust handles the problem.
Doc, comedian and Private Eye journo Phil Hammond, whistleblower at Bristol, NHS
Employers, actual Whistle-blowers like James Titcombe and David Drew
sharing their experiences, plus academics in organisational behaviour
and NHS specialist lawyer Chris Newdick.
Could we come together and produce
a consensus and advice on the practical everyday behaviours that
would make my 9 Tips history? It's worth a try, isn't it?
Let's give it a go. On 8th May we are
planning the Speaking Out Summit, a different kind of conference;
a get together, a chance to chat, talk and make a difference.
There are more details about
the SOS here.
I hope you can make it.
Have a good weekend.
