Whistleblowing Disclosures
Dear General Medical Council,
The Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) Regulations 2017 SI 2017/507 were made in accordance with Section 43FA of the Employment Rights Act 1996. These regulations require prescribed persons to report annually on disclosures of information made to them by workers.
The legislation can be found here:
• https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017...
• https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/199...
In 2021, the healthcare regulators which are prescribed persons for the purposes of Section 43F of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA”) produced a joint “Whistleblowing disclosures report”, which can be found here:
• https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents...
• https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/site...
• https://www.hcpc-uk.org/globalassets/res...
• https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/sites...
• https://www.gdc-uk.org/docs/default-sour...
• https://www.optical.org/filemanager/root...
• https://www.osteopathy.org.uk/news-and-r...
Similar joint reports were also published in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Please could you disclose:
1. Policies, procedures, guidance and other documents which show how you determine whether a concern (such as a fitness to practise concern) received by you is a worker’s disclosure, for the purposes of meeting your obligations under the Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) Regulations 2017 SI 2017/507.
2. Information showing how you determined whether a concern (such as a fitness to practise concern) received by you was a disclosure for the purposes of producing the 2021 “Whistleblowing disclosures report” and reporting within it on the number of disclosures of information received.
Yours faithfully,
Greg Lawton
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Information Access team
General Medical Council
Email: [GMC request email]
Dear Mr Lawton
Your information request – IR1-3290925023
Thank you for your email dated 7 December 2021.
How we will consider your request
We’re going to consider your request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA). The FOIA gives us 20 working days to respond, but we’ll come
back to you as soon as we can.
Who to contact
Louise Gormley will be handling your request. If you have any questions,
you can call her on 0161 923 6311 or email her at
[1][email address].
Kind regards,
Charlotte Adams
Information Access Team Assistant
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street, Manchester M3 3AW
Email: [2][email address]
Website: [3]www.gmc-uk.org
Telephone: 0161 240 8125
Working hours: 8am to 2.30pm, Monday to Friday
[4][IMG]
Dear FOI,
I have not yet received your substantive response. The deadline for providing the substantive response was 7 January 2022, because that was the 20th working day following the date of receipt of the request (the duty to respond by this deadline is set out in section 10(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000).
Please respond as soon as possible, and by no later than 14 January 2022.
Yours sincerely,
Greg Lawton
Our reference: IR1-3290925023
Dear Mr Lawton
Thank you for your request dated 7 December , in which you request
information about our policy and guidance relating to qualifying
disclosures made to us.
In response to your request please find attached our ‘Mandatory reporting
of Public Interest Concern qualifying disclosures’ guidance.
In addition I provide a link the following guidance on our website, which
you may find useful:
[1]Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety
[2]Ethical guidance - Speaking up
[3]GMC policy on whistleblowing
And I also provide a link to the latest joint regulatory whistleblowing
report, published last year:
[4]Annual report on whistleblowing from healthcare regulators
I hope this is helpful.
If I can be of any further assistance please let me know.
Kind regards
Louise
Louise Gormley
Information Access Officer
Resources Directorate
Direct Line: 0161 923 6311
Email: [5][email address]
Website: [6]www.gmc-uk.org
Address: Information Access Team
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester
M3 3AW
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S. Ali left an annotation ()
This is interesting, For several years prior to GMC difficulties, as elected doctors representative I raised concerns about the HEE West Midlands deanery anti-whistleblowing policy based on GMC processes and abuse of the appraisal/revalidation process to protect bad doctors with multiple deaths -some of which have led to convictions of surgeons with long prison sentences. This is covered by PIDA since 2013 and submissions also made to a public inquiry.
After leaving the NHS, in 2017 due to repercussions, I contacted the coroner about the tragic preventable 2014 post-surgical death of Mr Bernard Godvin (deceased so name can be published) whom was left in excruciating pain for several days to beat the surgical window, there were also concerns about the incompetent old surgeon whom was under informal supervision with multiple other deaths. Several years later, my action of contacting the coroner triggered the re-enaction of the local anti-whistleblowing policy. The HEE complainants acted to stop me from working as punishment, colluded with the GMC liaison (backdoor) service. This was highlighted in interim tribunal 2017 but the GMC appear to actively avoid this issue/malicious complaint (whilst even now starting further vexatious investigations as bad GMC practices was highlighted to other organisations) whilst the employed MPTS will not act against its employer if PIDA occurs during a hearing. I suspect this was not reported and their are many more.
In my opinion the GMC both supports employers/complainants with anti-PIDA/whistleblowing policies including using FTP thus also refuses to support doctors raising concerns. Importantly this is because when such concerns are raised, it can undermine the statutory function of the protection of the public perception of the medical profession, the GMC will act questionably.
Do not expect a straightforward response with candour from the GMC, numbers are under-reported.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Ali