Doctors cannot enter into contracts or agreements with ‘gagging clauses’ and have a duty to act when they believe patient safety is at risk, new GMC guidance stipulates.
The new guidance Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety seeks to increase doctors’ sense of responsibility for the care they witness and to encourage ‘whistleblowing’.
The guidance explains when doctors need to raise concerns if patient safety is at risk, or when a patient’s care or dignity is being compromised, and advises on the help and support available to them, including how to tackle any barriers that they may face.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the GMC, said: “These clauses are totally unacceptable. Doctors who sign such contracts are breaking their professional obligations and are putting patients, and their careers, at risk.”
Doctors also have responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of patients when performing non-clinical duties - including when they are working as a manager. New guidance Leadership and management for all doctors has also been issued with the aim of helping doctors understand their responsibilities in relation to employment issues, teaching and training, as well as planning and using and managing resources.
Responding to the guidance, defence body MPS said employers had to do more to support doctors in raising concerns and remove “the barriers”.
Dr Stephanie Bown, director of policy and communications at MPS, said: “We receive calls from members who have seen things that cause them concern, and who are seeking clarification about what to do. Unfortunately many express fear about the potential consequences of ‘rocking the boat’ and that they might be penalised for speaking up.
“The readiness of doctors to fulfil this professional responsibility has been clouded by fear of the potential consequences. It’s unacceptable for organisations and clinical leaders to simply pay lip service to ‘raising concerns’ about patient safety - they have to live it and they have to lead by example.”
The GMC’s new local liaison service will use the guidance and work with medical directors, doctors and patients groups to help foster openness and a willingness to speak out.
Dickson said: “Being a good doctor involves more than simply being a good clinician. It means being committed to improving the quality of services and being willing to speak up when things are not right - that is not always easy but it is at the heart of medical professionalism.
“Our new guidance also makes clear that doctors must not sign contracts that attempt to prevent them from raising concerns with professional regulators such as the GMC and systems regulators, such as the CQC. Nor must doctors in management roles promote such contracts or encourage other doctors to sign them. Those who promote or sign such agreements are breaking their professional obligations and putting their careers at risk.”
The guidance comes into effect on 12 March 2012.
MPS’s Brown added: “It is not about an organisation having a ‘policy folder’ that they dust off when there is an issue, it’s about the organisation developing the type of working environment which encourages and supports their staff to raise concerns openly, following the appropriate procedure.”
Read the raising concerns guidance and leadership guidance.
Tags: Leadership, Patient safety, Whistleblowing
Well that is lip service from both MPS and GMC!
If MPS has many of their members calling expressing concerns about patient safety but still frightened to raise them then there is something seriously wrong with our NHS culture and leadership. As doctors we will be failing our patients and the Public of this country.
I can understand doctors being frightened but why can’t MPS collect the details of the hospital from where these members are calling and refer the matter to the BMA, GMC, CQC and DOH so that patients are protected and the organisations and the leadership of such organisations are held to account?
MPS has a duty to protect its members and make sure they work in an organisation where there is strong safety culture and not a culture of bullying which makes these doctors so frightened to raise concerns.
At last the GMC has come out and stated, unequivocally, the DUTY of doctors in these circumstances.
However, there is ample evidence (in these columns and elsewhere) that doctors are frightened of ‘blowing the whistle’ - and the treatment of those who have done so makes such fear understandable.
Maybe the solution should be that doctors ‘alert’ the GMC of such cases where patients are being put in danger - and the GMC should take the matter up with the Trust/hospital/ GP whilst maintaining the anonymity of the whistle-blower.
Retired Orthopod