Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of NHS processes for dealing with whistle-blowers.

The National Health Service’s national freedom to speak up policy provides the minimum standard for local freedom to speak up policies across the NHS, so those who work in the NHS know how to speak up and what will happen when they do. It states that speaking up is to be welcomed and emphasises the need for a culture in which speaking up is considered normal, everyday practice. All organisations delivering NHS care should adopt this strengthened policy by January 2024.