Whistleblowers: promises of protection are repeatedly broken, meeting hears

There has never been a more dangerous time for frontline NHS staff to consider speaking up in defence of patients, a consultant surgeon who lost his job after reporting concerns about an avoidable death has told a meeting on whistleblowing at the Royal Society of Medicine.

All three levels of supposed protection—the NHS itself, regulators, and the law—are failing whistleblowers, Peter Duffy said.

Duffy, who reported his worries to the Care Quality Commission in 2015, won his case for unfair constructive dismissal at an employment tribunal last July. He was awarded £102 000 (€120 000; $135 000), which related to a dispute over pay, not his disclosures.

He told the meeting, opened by the RSM’s president, Simon Wessely, that he had been forced to resign from University Hospitals of …