In a private letter sent to MPs and Peers last week, Employment Relations Minister Jo Swinson said that whistleblowing legislation will be overhauled and promised amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act (Pida) 1998.
The letter came after a second whistleblower claimed that the head of the NHS had ignored written warnings about failings in a hospital trust, which is being investigated for persistently high death rates.
Former chairman of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (ULHT), David Bowles, said he had sent a letter in July 2009 to the Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, warning that patients could die there because managers were being forced to meet unrealistic targets. He claimed that Nicholson failed to investigate the detailed allegations properly.
While last week, Gary Walker, the former Chief Executive of ULHT, claimed that he was gagged, threatened and prevented from raising patient safety concerns, which was condemned by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who said that if it were found to be true, it would be unacceptable.
Ms Swinson’s letter refers to a recent meeting between Lords Younger, Young and Stevenson in which “the possibility of taking a wider look” at Pida was discussed. This, she added, could happen after the enterprise and regulatory reform bill returns to parliament later this month.
She wrote that “consideration” will then be given to how the Act “might” be extended to some NHS workers not currently covered by Pida and that those discussions will be followed by a consultation on “other issues, such as the need to protect job applicants who have suffered because they were blacklisted for blowing the whistle
However, Sir Richard Shepherd, the Conservative MP who introduced Pida as a private member’s bill in 1998, said it needed no amendments. He said he was “angered” by the criticisms of what he described as “one of the most progressive Acts in the western world”.