Dear Dr Alexander

Thank you for your email of 2 March to Sir David Norgrove, detailing your concerns about the number of NHS whistleblowing cases used in the report A review of the Fit and Proper Person Test, which was passed to my office for investigation.

We agree that paragraph 10.14 cited by you could be clearer. To improve comparability and coherence between data about NHS whistleblowing, we have written to the Department for Health and Social Care asking them to consider whether the data collected by the NHS whistleblowing helpline could be published. They have indicated that they will consider better ways to communicate statistics about NHS whistleblowing to allow users to understand the full picture.

Regarding your concern about the data published by the National Guardian’s Office, we note that their Freedom to Speak Up Annual Report 2017/18 has detail on the number and percentage of workers who raised concerns and would do so again. For ease of reference, the table below has the relevant figures reproduced from this annual report.

 

Quarter	Feedback received	Yes	No	Maybe	Don’t know
Q1	404	343	8	18	27
Q2	511	446	21	33	15
Q3	729	634	31	26	34
Q4	763	654	24	31	38
Total	2407	2077	84	108	114
% of total		87%	4%	5%	5%

 

Yours sincerely

Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation