MORE than a third of staff working in the NHS in Scotland feel unable to voice concerns about standards and colleagues, a Holyrood committee has found.
The Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee said the NHS needed to be more “open and transparent” and for the current whistleblowing system to go further.
READ MORE: Devolution allowed the NHS in Scotland to go a different path
The committee also found that patients can face barriers when trying to making complaints and also lack of confidence that raising a complaint would result in changes to care or treatment.
The current complaints system is too process driven, the MSPs said.
Committee convener Lewis Macdonald said: “The whole purpose of this investigation is to ensure that the culture of the NHS allows for the delivery of the highest quality of care to patients.
“We heard directly from staff, patients, NHS Board members and senior NHS managers. We heard that patients want more and greater involvement in their care and how it is delivered.
“Most importantly, when things do go wrong, there should be greater transparency allowing patients and their families to feel confident lessons will be learned.”
Labour’s Anas Sarwar said: “It is deeply troubling that more than a third of NHS staff still feel they cannot raise concerns about what is going wrong in the health service.”
“Our hardworking doctors and nurses deserve support,” he added.
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