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Social Care Code Encourages Whistleblowing

In the UK a new (2001) draft code of conduct for social care staff is to include a clause requiring them to blow the whistle on colleagues who abuse or exploit clients.

Sources told the magazine Community Care that the proposed General Social Care Council code would

require people to ‘recognise and challenge any abusive or exploitative practice, and refer it

to the appropriate person or authority’.

  They would also be expected to ‘use established processes and procedures to redress the

problem’.

  Other clauses in the draft code would require registered staff to advise their employer or

‘appropriate authority’ if they do not think they are competent to undertake tasks allocated

to them.

  Similarly, those allocating duties to other staff would be expected to address any concerns

that those staff might have about their competence to do the work.

  The GSCC and its regional equivalents are due come into being on October 1st 2001, but

arrangements for registering the various professional groups— not to mention unqualified

staff - are expected to take several years.

  Codes of conduct are typical of regulatory bodies of other professions; similar

whistleblowing clauses already exist for doctors, and one is being proposed for nurses.

  The General Medical Council’s code, Good Medical Practice, obliges doctors to ‘protect

patients when you believe that a doctor’s or other colleagues health, conduct or

performance is a threat to them’.

  And the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing and Midwifery’s draft code of conduct

requires nurses to act quickly to protect patients from risk’if you have good reason to

believe that you or a colleague may not be fit to practice for reason of conduct, health or

competence’.

If you have something to say tell Freedom to Care or go to the Community of Care website at:

http://www.community-care.co.uk

In another development a London borough is urging its social services staff to blow the whistle on any "inappropriate behaviour" with children or vulnerable adults in care via an anonymous and independent hotline. Lambeth Council has publicised the hotline with leaflets, posters and email. It provides a 'whistleblower's charter'.

Consultation on Social Services Draft Code

A One-sided Code?

FtC’s Letter to Lynne Berry, Chief Executive, GSCC, dated 26/3/2002.

“Freedom to Care has consulted its members who work in social care and we wish to make the following observations.

1. We understand from reading ‘Community Care’ (10-16 January, 2002) that while the Code for workers will be compulsory for “anyone wanting to register with any social care council” and therefore to work in social care, for employers “there is no legal requirement” for them to sign up to the Code of Practice. We do not believe it is feasible to have the Code compulsory for workers, while for the employers it is voluntary. For instance, this leaves workers with the obligation to challenge “dangerous, abusive, discriminatory and exploitative behaviour and using established processes and procedures to report it”. But it leaves it purely a voluntary matter for employers to “Provide procedures which encourage and enable staff to report unsafe, incompetent or abusive behaviour”. Therefore, it is not compulsory for the employers to provide the conditions in which workers can follow the code. The list of points in the Employers' Draft Code would seem to be criteria that any social care employer must meet, many of them legal requirements; therefore, Freedom to Care believes that: signing an undertaking to adhere to the Employers’ Code of Practice should be a condition of Registration for any social care employer, in order to be allowed to practice in the social care field.

2. We believe that both Codes should specify that employers provide and workers adhere to a Public Interest Disclosure (or “Whistleblowing”) Policy, and that adherence to that policy should be a duty on all. While the Codes do not provide for detail on such matters, we believe that the minimum terms for such a policy should be that it specifies outside and independent routes for whistleblowers to take, following the exhaustion of internal procedures and that the Policy should specify reasonable time-scales, within the terms of avoiding unreasonable delay, as upheld in the Court System.

3. We also believe that should an employer take retributive action against an employee who has made a public interest disclosure in good faith, and that that retribution is independently proven to the level of evidence of the balance of probabilities (i.e., in a subsequent Employment Tribunal or Personal Injury Hearing), that the employer's behaviour in this be taken into account in deciding whether the employer should retain their registration as a social care provider, or other sanctions be considered by the General Social Care Council.

Given the requirement for Social Services Departments to have whistleblowing procedures and policies, we remain extremely concerned about the number of cases still being referred to us at FtC, where workers are being harassed and sacked or otherwise driven from their jobs, following raising clear and evidenced concerns about abuse and harm in their workplaces, whether deliberate harm or by omission. Many of these cases have involved the whistleblowing procedures being pre-empted by resort to other matters, subsequently raised by managers likely to be embarrassed by the concerns raised by their staff. We believe that the incorporation of the above powers into the remit of the GSCC and, therefore into the regime of those responsible for inspection and registration, will enhance the protection of staff who seek to adhere to their Code, in the face of malpractice within their organisation.”

29June01