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.

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.

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 Incident Reporting Plan.

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.