Raising concerns

The safety of patients at Great Ormond Street Hospital is always our most important consideration. The Trust openly encourages all members of staff to raise any concerns they may have about patient care openly and honestly. There are clear processes for raising concerns and these are available to all staff on the internal Trust website.

This plan outlines how we as an organisation will look at patient safety incidents, what tools will be used to investigate and how it will share and embed learning into everyday work.

Find out more about the Patient Safety at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

There has been a lot of coverage in the media about the use of confidentiality clauses (commonly referred to as ‘gagging clauses’) in settlement agreements to prevent former employees raising concerns about patient safety. We want to clarify the hospital’s position on this.

Like almost all employers, the hospital has a small number of settlement agreements with former employees. The Trust would normally have agreed these on a purely economic basis in order to save legal costs and maximise the funds available for use on our services.

None of these settlement agreements should prevent any of our former employees from raising any concerns about patient safety. We can confirm that any confidentiality restrictions included in the settlements do not apply where an employee wishes to make a whistleblowing disclosure in the public interest. We have written to those individuals concerned to reiterate that point.

All staff and former staff are protected under the Trust’s whistleblowing policies. They have the assurance that disclosures made in good faith to us will be treated sensitively and seriously.

FTSU Guardians support staff to raise concerns about anything that may get in the way of delivering safe, high-quality care. We have speaking up policies and processes in place to support all workers in doing this. This includes healthcare professionals, non-clinical staff, managers at all levels, volunteers, students, bank and agency staff, as well as former employees.

FTSU Guardians cannot support patients or families – we have other routes for patients and families to raise concerns or to make suggestions for improvement. Find out more about feedback, concerns and complaints at GOSH.

GOSH has two FTSU Guardians who provide impartial support for workers to speak up. They treat all cases confidentially. Individuals can also speak up anonymously, and don’t need to provide identifiable information (although this can make it more difficult if the Guardians need more information or would like to feed back to you).

GOSH’s FTSU Guardians are:

• Kiera Parkes- Lead FTSU Guardian
• Mani Randhawa- Deputy FTSU Guardian

Contact the FTSU Guardians at GOSH:

Email: speakup@gosh.nhs.uk

Anyone who has concerns about patient safety in the hospital should contact Dr Sanjiv Sharma, Medical Director with responsibility for Quality and Safety.

Anyone who has questions about this policy on confidentiality or whistleblowing should contact Caroline Anderson, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development.