13.05.16
Whistleblower treated unfairly by Royal Wolverhampton Trust, investigation finds
An independent investigation has found substantial flaws in the way Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust handled whistleblowing allegations from a former employee.
Sandra Haynes-Kirkbright worked as head of clinical coding and data quality at Royal Wolverhampton from October 2011 to July 2012, when she was suspended following complaints about her management style from the coders in her department.
The Daily Mail ran a front page article in March 2013 reporting that Mrs Haynes-Kirkbright had alleged that the trust used fraudulent data reporting practices to improve its recorded death rate, followed by another article in March 2014 alleging that she was facing suspension for speaking to the newspaper.
In an independent report published yesterday on behalf of the NHS Trust Development Authority, management consultancy Verita said that Mrs Haynes-Kirkbright was not treated fairly by Royal Wolverhampton as the trust’s handling of her whistleblowing allegations was seriously flawed.
The report did not comment on whether all the allegations reported in the Daily Mail, some of which Mrs Haynes-Kirkbright has always maintained she never said, were accurate.
However, it said that she did raise concerns about systematic coding and reporting irregularities that were to the financial advantage of the trust and about being pressured to make assumptions about the reasons for patients’ unusually long stays in hospitals.
She was not treated as a whistleblower, as she should have been under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
The report found that the trust’s investigation of the complaints made against Mrs Haynes-Kirkbright by her department followed proper procedure.
The report concluded that Royal Wolverhampton’s whistleblowing policy is out of date and not fit for purpose.
Last month NHS Improvement published the first national policy to protect whistleblowers, and the CQC is seeking a new national guardian for whistleblowers after Dame Eileen Sills resigned from the position.