Independent Scrutiny



I listened to the Jeremy Hunt's statement in the House of Commons yesterday on the need for further action to protect 'whistleblowers' in the NHS and I have to say it was a complete breath of fresh air, putting to the sword any notion that the Conservatives or the Coalition Government are out to 'destroy the NHS' as Labour often claims.

The health secretary accepted, in principle, all of the finding of the latest Francis report into whistleblowing, Robert Francis being the QC who conducted the investigation into Mid Staffordshire Hospital where poor standards of patient care caused up to 1200 unnecessary deaths.   

Jeremy Hunt invited Robert Francis to conduct a similar exercise on whistleblowing and he has delivered the goods again, by highlighting a number of cases which suggest that people (staff and patients or their families) can still be victimised for speaking out over incidents of poor or sub-standard care.

The health secretary will now consult widely on how to put the recommendations of the Francis report into practice and if you ask me, this shows yet again the importance of independent scrutiny in driving up standards in the NHS and elsewhere .

Just imagine what kind of shake up would take place in the country's trade unions if someone like Robert Francis was invited to to investigate how unrepresentative they are, especially in Scotland where virtually every senior trade union figure is a Labour Party supporter.

Or what recourse ordinary union members should have if they feel they have received a poor service over equal pay, for example, or been badly represented in some kind of individual problem at the workplace.

Because at the moment union members can only complain to the union's bureaucracy which is then both judge and jury in deciding how to respond. 

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