Clinical Negligence claims set to rise if NHS whistleblowers demonised

Clinical Negligence claims are set to rise if a culture of demonising NHS whistleblowers putting patient safety before their own careers, is allowed to continue, contends Sarah Ratcliffe, Associate Solicitor who specialises in Clinical Negligence.

Funding alone won’t fix the NHS

When people talk about fixing the NHS, they talk about funding specifically, but really, there are other underlying issues that funding alone cannot fix.

How important is patient safety to the NHS?

We hear a lot about how underfunded the NHS is and promises made by successive governments to commit to a higher level of spending on health care. But if there are major internal issues within hospital trusts where staff do not feel like their concerns regarding patient safety are taken seriously, or even if they are punished for whistleblowing, then no amount of money will ever fix the problem.

How is patient safety reportedly managed at UHB?

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust is one of England’s worst-performing trusts and a recent investigation has found that concerns regarding patient safety and staff shortages were not only ignored but allegedly actively discouraged by punishing those who raised them. Birmingham is the UK’s second-largest city with a population of almost 1.5 million, all served by four hospitals under UHB. That is a lot of people to care for and a lot of people potentially at risk of continuing unsafe practices, which may have been brought to the attention of senior staff within the trust but simply ignored.

According to BBC Newsnight, between April 2020 and April 2021 there were 12 ‘never events’, which are serious safety incidents which should never happen if the right procedures were implemented. This figure had dropped the following year, but the Care Quality Commission continues to rate the trust as ‘requiring improvement’.

Patient safety and Clinical Negligence claims

If this continues without senior staff recognising that there are issues that need resolving which go beyond funding, then the number of serious incidents and otherwise avoidable injuries will increase, and so will the Clinical Negligence claims.