Doctor takes Airedale NHS Trust ‘gagging’ campaign to Parliament (From Craven Herald)
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Doctor takes Airedale NHS Trust ‘gagging’ campaign to Parliament
10:10am Thursday 7th March 2013 in News
By Lindsey Moore, Deputy Editor
Support: Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson
A geriatrician campaigning for more openness in the NHS is hoping her fight will be taken up in Parliament.
Dr Mary Harrington, who resigned from Airedale NHS Trust in 2010 rather than sign a “gagging order”, is calling on the Government to introduce rules requiring trusts to seek the approval of the Department of Health before asking employees to sign compromise and confidentiality agreements.
“I am keen to change the culture of the NHS about whistle-blowing,” said Dr Harrington, who says she was asked to sign a compromise agreement after raising a number of concerns over standards of care and the safety of elderly patients.
She believes gagging clauses work against patient safety and maintaining standards of care.
She says that forcing trusts to seek the express consent of the Department of Health will make them think twice about imposing confidentiality agreements in the future and the information could be analysed for patterns.
“This will provide useful data for identifying where they are problems and areas of poor practice,” said Dr Harrington.
She put her idea to her local MP, Pendle’s Andrew Stephenson, on Saturday.
Mr Stephenson told the Herald: “I am supportive of what she is proposing in relation to compromise and confidentiality agreements and have agreed to raise her idea with the Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP. I am now in the process of setting up that meeting.”
Last month Mr Hunt wrote to all NHS Trusts, warning bosses against allowing a culture that was “legalistic and defensive” in dealing with staff who raised concerns over patient care.
Dr Harrington is also planning to highlight the issue in the British Medical Journal.
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust has consistently said it takes transparency very seriously and its compromise agreements do not prevent the disclosure of information which is in the public interest.
