Guides / Whistleblowing and speaking up
Whistleblowing in care: a guide for care providers
Care workers are often the first to see poor practice, and the people they care for may not be able to raise it themselves. This guide covers what care staff can raise, who they can go to outside your organization, and how to make your own route the one they use first.
This guide covers England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland has its own whistleblowing legislation and list of regulators. It is general information, not legal advice.
Why whistleblowing matters more in care
The people receiving care may not be able to complain, or may not be believed if they do. That leaves staff as the main early warning. They are also the people least likely to have an easy route to raise something: many work nights, many come through agencies, many speak English as a second language, and in a small service the registered manager may be the only senior person they ever see.
What care staff can raise
UK law protects workers who reasonably believe, in the public interest, that they are disclosing a criminal offence, a breach of a legal obligation, danger to someone's health or safety, sexual harassment, damage to the environment, a miscarriage of justice, or a cover-up of any of these. In care that often means:
- abuse or neglect of someone receiving care;
- staffing too low to keep people safe;
- medication errors that are not reported;
- records being changed or filled in for care that did not happen;
- unsafe moving and handling, equipment or premises;
- harassment of staff or residents.
Whistleblowing and safeguarding overlap but are not the same. A concern about a specific person at risk of harm still needs your safeguarding procedure and, where required, a referral to the local authority. Immediate danger needs the emergency services. Your whistleblowing policy should say this clearly.
Who staff can go to outside your organization
Workers keep their legal protection if they go to a "prescribed person". For care, the list includes:
- England: the Care Quality Commission, for matters about the registration and provision of regulated activities.
- Scotland: Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (the Care Inspectorate), for matters about care services.
- Wales: Social Care Wales, for matters about the registration of social care workers. The list also names the Welsh Ministers for some care services.
Check the current GOV.UK list for your service. Telling staff about these routes does not weaken yours. It shows you are not trying to keep concerns in, and that makes your own route easier to trust.
Make your own route the one staff use first
- Include everyone. Agency, bank and domestic staff see the same things your employees see. Say in writing that the policy covers them.
- Give a route that bypasses the home. A regional manager, a nominated person at head office, or a link that reaches reviewers outside the service.
- Make it work at night. If the only route is a meeting with the manager on Monday, a night carer will wait, or leave.
- Use their languages. A concern explained clearly in Tagalog or Polish is worth more than a half-explained one in English.
- Reply, then record. Acknowledge quickly, ask what you need to know, and record what was done. Inspectors and boards will ask how concerns were handled.
- Watch for detriment. Rota changes and lost shifts after a concern are the most common form of unfair treatment in care. Check for them.
Our whistleblowing policy guide has a template you can adapt, and building a speak up culture covers the habits that make people use it.
Where Tellhaven fits
Tellhaven gives each home or service its own link or QR code. Staff, and families if you choose, type or talk in their own language at any hour. Haven asks follow-up questions, reviewers outside the home read the concern in English and reply in the same thread, and cases record what was done. It does not replace safeguarding referrals, emergency services or the regulators above. See Tellhaven for aged care and whistleblowing software.