Western Isles NHS Board

Case ref: 202106175

NHS organisation: Western Isles NHS Board

Subject: Patient Safety/ handling of whistleblowing concern/ speak up culture

Date: July 2024

This is the report of the Independent National Whistleblowing Officer (INWO) on a whistleblowing complaint about the handling of a whistleblowing concern. It is published in terms of section 15(1) of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 which sets out the INWO’s role and powers. There is more information about this here: https://inwo.spso.org.uk/ 

Supported by the public and confidential appendices, it is a full and fair summary of my investigation.

Executive summary

1. The complainant (C) complained to the INWO about Western Isles NHS Board (the Board). C was involved in a whistleblowing investigation carried out by the Board under the National Whistleblowing Standards.
2. The complaint I investigated* about the Board is that there was:
   1. Unreasonable failure to remove ligature points from hospitals. (upheld)
   2. Unreasonable failure to provide an ongoing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) service or respond to concerns raised about the lack of provision. (not upheld)
   3. Unreasonable failure to assess and mitigate the risk of suicides through the use of suicide prevention strategies. (not upheld)
   4. Unreasonable failure to take appropriate review and learning action in response to a suicide. (not upheld)
   5. Unreasonable failure to consider and/ or act on learning and improvement recommendations from incident investigations. (upheld)
   6. Failure to handle concerns in line with the National Whistleblowing Standards. (upheld)
   7. Failure to create and maintain a culture that values and acts on concerns raised by staff. (not upheld)
3. As a result of my findings, the Board have been asked to implement a number of recommendations and consider and reflect on other feedback, particularly in relation to compliance with the National Whistleblowing Standards.
4. My investigation also identified a number of areas of good practice by the Board, which has been included in my feedback.

*The INWO discontinued investigation into a further point complaint for jurisdictional reasons. It is not relevant to this investigation. I refer to it for completeness.