Whistleblowing and Journalism

Whistleblowing is raising public interest concerns relating to wrongdoing, malpractice or risk in the workplace. This could be fraud in a bank, food hygiene concerns, or issues relating to patient safety. And whilst whistleblowing concerns are not limited to widescale wrongdoing, recent scandals in the media such as the NHS Shrewsbury maternity scandal and NHS West Suffolk hospital (where staff were subject to fingerprinting to help identify a whistleblower) have highlighted serious patient safety concerns, as well as the hospital’s negative handling of whistleblowers. Concerns also tend to be in the public interest if the wrongdoing affects other people and their interests – not the whistleblower alone.Whilst the term ‘whistleblowing’ is not defined legally, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (“PIDA”) – which talks in terms of ‘protected disclosures’ – comes closest….Read the Impress blog in full