YP Comment: NHS: Time for culture change. Support the whistleblowers

For many years now, lip service has been paid to the notion that staff in the emergency services must be given all necessary protection and support should they feel impelled to blow the whistle on unacceptable practices that have been continually ignored by their managers.

The reality, however, as any NHS professional will privately admit, is that this is an organisation which reacts very badly to employees speaking out in the media, or complaining to politicians, even when the practices in question have the potential to put patients in danger.

Indeed, the high death rates uncovered in the Stafford Hospital scandal provide an object lesson in what can happen when warnings about failings in care are ignored.

So, while it is welcome news that protection for NHS whistleblowers is to be extended, this will mean little unless the protection is going to be actively enforced. Yet all the evidence from Stafford Hospital and elsewhere suggests that, far from being supported, whistleblowers are actively victimised after speaking out.

Yet the strains that the NHS is currently feeling suggest that change is needed now more than ever.

Only today, a survey reports that fewer than one in 10 NHS nurses always feel able to provide safe levels of care. Meanwhile, NHS Providers says there is simply not enough money in frontline services to meet the standards required.

In other words, this is an environment in which errors and bad practice are increasingly likely. Consequently, there has never been a greater need for NHS staff to remain vigilant and to be ready to speak out in the confident knowledge that they will not be victimised as a result.

Our MPs must be kept safe

THE VAST majority of so-called trolls, who use social media to insult and threaten fellow users, are merely sad individuals who have no intention of carrying out their vile threats.

Yet it is, of course, impossible to distinguish between those who are merely content to intimidate because technology has provided them with a simple and anonymous means of doing so, and those who truly intend serious harm. And last year’s senseless murder of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox was a tragic illustration of the potential danger faced by those in public life.

In the months since Mrs Cox’s death, the police team looking into crimes against MPs has investigated more than 50 complaints, ranging from hate-filled rants on Twitter to criminal damage.

The danger, therefore, is clear and anyone who doubts this has only to listen to York Central MP Rachael Maskell who was the target of appalling threats following Mrs Cox’s murder and who fears that many people, particularly women, will be deterred from standing for Parliament because of the level of abuse.

It is, of course, traditional for the public to moan about MPs. Yet the fact is that most MPs are all too willing to risk being unpopular in the cause of championing what they believe to be right.

They are equally willing to be criticised and to argue their case through the forum of rational debate. But no one should be expected to tolerate abuse, let alone put their lives on the line, purely because they are in public service. The money spent on keeping our MPs safe, therefore, is a necessary and tragic sign of the times.

Bringing history to life

HULL’S OLD Town, as visitors are now discovering, is the City of Culture’s hidden treasure, a hive of historical interest where the story of Hull is made clear not just in the area’s fascinating and free museums, but in the very streets themselves.

The worry, however, is that, once this year’s celebrations are over, the Old Town will become a secret once again, just like Elsecar, the conservation village in Barnsley, which also has a rich history but which is visited by comparatively few.

The fact that both areas are being named Heritage Action Zones should now help to rid them of their undeserved anonymity. Here are two districts steeped in history, with fascinating stories to tell, and it is high time that their status as two of Yorkshire’s best-kept secrets was brought to an end.