Whistleblowing: An Introduction
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Transcript
My name is Callum Blackburn.
I'm a Non-Executive Director of the Golden Jubilee.
So I sit on the Board. I'm also the sustainability champion and the whistleblowing champion on the Board.
People get confused between things like grievances, bullying and harassment and whistleblowing.
I suppose the real difference between whistleblowing and those other things are it's in the public interest.
Anything really that could be seen as of something in the public interest that people should know about, should be addressed.
And it goes beyond staff members.
The whistleblowing standards apply to volunteers, staff member students and also people who have left employment in the Hospital for up to 6 months.
The whistleblowing standards came in in April 2021, and those really sort of set the, I suppose, the clear guidelines and procedures that boards must follow to try and create that speak up culture.
Really, the main focus, I suppose, of the standards is to protect the whistleblower and make sure that what they raise is properly investigated.
There is this thing within the standards which is called no detriment. So basically the whistleblower, the information they raise has to be dealt with confidentially and they should not suffer no detriment by raising it, raising what they've raised.
The way I characterise it is like health and safety. In a way, whistleblowing to me is kind of akin to that health and safety culture.
It's like the benefit to the organisation is if someone raises something and you address it early, then you're stopping from a greater problem happening later on.
