Newspeak at the National Guardian’s office

By Dr Minh Alexander, NHS whistleblower and former consultant psychiatrist, 8 February 2017

Governments do not like giving away power. They do not willingly support or protect whistleblowers, who challenge established power structures when they speak up. Whistleblowers are less concerned with fitting in, and more about the public interest. This makes them politically untidy.

Not many politicians genuinely support whistleblowers. A brave few do. A larger number pay lip service, sometimes whilst being complicit with reprisal and suppression behind closed doors.

Classically, governments buy time on whistleblowing by re-inventing the wheel ineffectively. Every few years there is a new initiative that Whitehall says must be given time to bed in, whilst knowing full well that it won’t work, because it is designed not to work.

The latest white elephant is the National Freedom to Speak Up Guardian’s office for whistleblowing in the NHS. 1

This much criticised contrivance, courtesy of the Department of Health, Robert Francis and the Care Quality Commission, will do none of the things that will help whistleblowers and patients. It has no powers, won’t investigate, make binding determinations about cases or provide appeal against unfair local decisions by employers. 2

In fact, everything of importance has been left in the control of employers – the very bodies that Francis admitted were incompetent or corrupt, or both. The excuse for this being that it is undesirable to prevent employers from taking responsibility for whistleblowing governance. 3

Instead, the National Guardian will only “review” – whatever that means – and make suggestions. 4

Francis did not explain what he meant by “review” when he put forward this proposal. It would have been difficult to do so without effectively admitting that the idea was a non starter.

When the National Guardian will review cases is anyone’s guess. The office has been blighted by a resignation and delays, and has still not yet accepted any cases. 5

There has also been little appetite shown for genuinely involving whistleblowers. A recent consultation by the National Guardian’s office was only opened up to whistleblowers after protest. 6 7

From two recent meetings, by telephone on 23 January and in person on 2 February, with the latest National Guardian Dr Henrietta Hughes (HH), some issues emerge:

HH, who took up post at the start of October 2016, said she received no handover and could not account for why work scheduled by her predecessor Eileen Sills had not been carried out

This is at odds to CQC’s previous rush to claim that the disruption caused by Eileen Sills’ departure last March was under control, with CQC set up staff staying on longer and Robert Francis’ steady hand on the tiller. 8 But we know about the CQC’s relationship with the truth, so no biggie.

HH has a budget of £1m, with equal contributions from CQC, NHS England and NHS Improvement. Her team comprises two national engagement managers, a comms manager, a strategy manager, a case review manager and a senior administrator. She may recruit more staff but that is not certain yet.

(Whisteblowers have since identified HH’s case review manager as a former CQC lead inspector).

HH will link with an Accountability and Liaison Committee, chaired by Francis. The other two committee members are Helen Buckingham NHS Improvement Director of Corporate Affairs 9 and Moira Gibb NHS England NED 10 . The Committee has met once and meets again in March. The memorandum of understanding which governs the arrangement has been circulated but not yet signed off by the three funding bodies.

HH will set up a Stakeholder Advisory Group that she will chair. There are no details yet.

HH has little lined up in terms of outcome measures. There is heavy reliance on the national staff survey.

Otherwise, HH proposed to rely on data gathered by local Guardians, but without checking its quality and reliability, or in some matters, even being aware what questions the local Guardians are asking.

HH said she is commissioning descriptive research on the way in which trusts have established their local Guardians and their different approaches. There is nothing definite planned about evaluating effectiveness.

HH resisted any direct acknowledgement of gross CQC failure on whistleblowing. She meets frequently with David Behan CQC Chief Executive to report on progress. But she said that she “feels independent”.

HH is not seeking statutory independence and powers, and will not follow the example of Conradi, Chief Inspector of HSIB who is in the process of doing so.12

Neither is HH supporting substantive reform of whistleblowing law, even though everyone who knows anything about whistleblowing knows this is vital.

HH said that the CQC is “looking again” at how it approaches trusts’ whistleblowing governance under its Well Led domain.

HH would not agree that CQC should inspect compromise agreements, although Francis has already said they should and CQC have accepted, in theory, that this is part of their responsibilities.

HH is unlikely to call a spade a spade or to call out wrongdoers. She sticks to Francis’ lately adopted position that punishing wrongdoers will increase cover ups. She implies that frank criticism perpetuates “negative culture”, and prefers to speak of helping people to improve.

It is hard to conceive how this is an appropriate approach to serious managerial misconduct, and sometimes criminal behaviours, which are found in the worst whistleblower cases.

HH refuses to say yet how her office will review cases. She says it depends on the outcome of current consultation. But she says it will not involve interviewing witnesses or using any established investigative process, and will not be comprehensive.

HH was reluctant to admit any failure by local Guardians. She initially said that no problems had been reported. She then acknowledged receiving a third party report of concerns about a local Guardian. In fact, there are other concerns, which have been reported to her personally.

Nevertheless, Hughes acknowledges that there is no evidence base for the local Guardians.

HH does not know how much it is costing the NHS to employ these un-evidenced local Guardians.

Hughes maintained that the local Guardians, who are not themselves trained for their roles, will help CQC inspectors to become more competent about whistleblowing.

HH admitted that super-gags (clauses in compromise agreements which prevent signatories from disclosing even their existence) are “insidious” but she stopped short of agreeing that they should be banned.

HH said there will be work on re-drafting a best practice template on NHS compromise agreements, and that NHS Improvement is interested in this.

HH volunteered that it might be possible for existing compromise agreements to be changed by “mutual consent”. She was less committal about the idea of a government waiver.

HH agreed to publish the newsletter that her office has been circulating to local Guardians, after initially demurring that there was insufficient space on her corner of the CQC website.

HH agreed in principle to publish material that trusts have been sending in for sharing, once she gets her own website, possibly some time this year.

Two years on from the publication of the Freedom To Speak Up Review, it is dispiriting that we are so little further forward. Whistleblowers knew that Robert Francis’ proposals were never going to work. But the execution of even his flawed recommendations is poor and slow. We do not have a strong and expert office. We have inexpert local Guardians led by someone with a managerial focus, who avoids criticising her chief paymaster, CQC. Henrietta Hughes is also on record expressing an unrealistic belief that change could happen if only staff were more pleasant to each other. 13

In short, all we have gained is pointless and wasteful bureaucracy.

Current whistleblowers in dire straits are presently being turned away, officiously, whilst the National Guardian’s office takes its time choosing which boxes it will tick. There has been a lack of warmth and humanity so far in the office’s approach, and worrying attempts to claim a remit that is even narrower than Francis’ very limited prescription.

As things stand, abusive NHS bosses need not lose sleep. Ministers can assume it is business as usual.

The Department of Health was not available for interview when asked by the BBC File on Four team to comment on continuing failures of NHS whistleblowing governance. Perhaps this is the strongest admission of all that Francis’ review has failed.

But it may be useful to remind the Secretary of State about this little sting in Francis’ Freedom to Speak Up report:

“Recommendation 2 The Secretary of State for Health should review at least annually the progress made in the implementation of these Principles and Actions and the performance of the NHS in handling concerns and the treatment of those who raise them, and to report to Parliament”

We’re all ears, Minister.

These are the agreed records of the two recent meetings with Henrietta Hughes, with some related correspondence:

hh-meeting-records-23-01-2017-and-2-02-2017

5 thoughts on “Newspeak at the National Guardian’s office”

dms91 says:

February 8, 2017 at 11:37 am

Heard File on Four programme and wondered how many were listening., Not NHS it appears!

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1. dms91 says:
  
  February 8, 2017 at 11:40 am
  
  How can you all ‘SPEAK UP’ safely if denied a life and a voice?
  
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minhalexander says:

February 8, 2017 at 11:49 am

DH lost for words, it seems. What can you say when caught wiv yer pants down? 🙂

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zrpradyer says:

February 8, 2017 at 12:13 pm

Magnificent post confirming our nation’s decline.

There is nothing like identifying a serious problem, that may well include matters of life and death, and then deliberately constructing a solution that is guaranteed not to make any difference whilst claiming it will.

Indeed, the ‘guardianship’ approach is even worse. As per the handbook on corruption, the guardians will not be volunteering their time freely but will be extracting monies from NHS funds i.e. taxpayers’ money, in order to diligently not do what the gullible public imagine they will.

But, there is one trick they have yet to exploit. My suggestion, (as the newly, self-appointed honorary National Enragement Manager) is that they should, bearing in mind the importance of their roles, have uniforms.

We’ll obviously have to consult with a high-end designer to ensure a suitably convincing appearance for the publicity shots and propaganda campaign. We can’t have the public doubting, and certainly not laughing at them, can we? After all, it’s the NHS staff who have to laugh, that being the best medicine, whilst the patients must pay through gritted teeth (if they have any left).

Thank you, Dr A.

Kindest, Zara.

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1. minhalexander says:
  
  February 8, 2017 at 12:19 pm
  
  Good morning Zara. Uncanny that you mention uniforms. Whistleblowers were much tickled by recent references to a yellow uniform at a recent National Guardian event. There is apparently such a precedent. I’ll stop there.
  
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