Happy New Year from WhistleblowersUK
WhistleblowersUK would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. As we begin 2023, we have a lot to look forward to, but also a range of challenges that as a country that we must confront, that said we believe that this will be the year of the whistleblower.
Building on our successes last year we are continuing to push for legislative change in the UK to protect every citizen who raises concerns. As part of this, we are planning to run more events in Parliament to promote our legislation and spread awareness of whistleblowing best practices. We believe the Government should be taking the initiative and work to ensure whistleblowers are recognised as assets, not liabilities, and we will be demonstrating that to them.
WhistleblowersUK is constantly developing its thought leadership. As part of this we have a number of focus groups chaired by industry specialists working to identify lessons which can be taken from one sector and applied to others in order to facilitate learning and deliver improvements to public safety and confidence. We are looking forward to revealing these results and combining the findings into a comprehensive report later this year specifically aimed at senior leaders.
At the start of this year, the Times reported on the successful case of Linda Fairhall following her six figure settlement awarded at tribunal. While we are pleased to see the success of another whistleblower it highlights the key issues with the current system here in the UK.
“We congratulate and commend Linda on bringing a successful case and hope that she and her family will be able to take a well deserved rest. We also hope that this case will again demonstrate to the Government the importance of adopting our proposals contained in the Whistleblowing Bill to prevent the loss of our talented and committed NHS staff and prevent future harm to patients and the waste of huge sums of taxpayers money in unnecessary litigation.”
Unfortunately, until the Government takes responsibility for the broken system we will continue to see whistleblowers struggle through a system that fails to address the concerns that led to their despair. In recent weeks Dr Chris Day and Alison McDermott, whistleblowers in the NHS and at Sellafield respectively, have both been granted the right to appeal the contentious decisions they both received. We wish them both the best of luck with their respective cases and hope that justice will prevail and encourage everyone to support them.
Our WhistleblowersUK Associate Membership is open to anyone who supports whistleblowing. It meets virtually every second week and provides an opportunity to hear from guest speakers from around the world and peer to peer support and learning. It is an opportunity to engage with expert lawyers and other practitioners, join a focus group and get involved with our campaign for the introduction of the Office of the Whistleblower.
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