Margaret McCartney: Can junior doctors feel safe to blow the whistle?

In April, NHS England published a national whistleblowing policy. “Don’t wait for proof,” it said. “It doesn’t matter if you turn out to be mistaken as long as you are genuinely troubled . . . You will not be at risk of losing your job or suffering any form of reprisal as a result.” In 2014 a junior doctor, Chris Day, was covering intensive care when two locum doctors booked to work didn’t turn up. Day made a “protected disclosure,” a legal process designed to protect whistleblowers, to tell managers that he was dangerously overstretched and that the ward was unsafely staffed. Day claimed that he was subsequently victimised by the trust and by Health Education England (HEE); the dispute that followed cost him his training number. He ended up losing his training place, with HEE opposing him in court arguing about who was responsible for his employment. The court found that, because Day was employed by a trust, he had no claim against HEE, which would have been responsible for organising his ongoing appointments. The court concluded that “this is not a case of a gap within the boundaries of protection, but a case in which the relationship falls well outside those boundaries.” Yet HEE had control of his training number and place of work and contributed to his salary—thus, it controlled his employment.