By Dominic Hughes
Health correspondent, BBC News
Protections for NHS staff to speak out about wrongdoing may be insufficient to prevent another big scandal like that at the Mid Staffordshire hospital trust, an expert has told BBC News.
Sir Robert Francis led the inquiry into hundreds of patient deaths at Stafford Hospital more than a decade ago.
He says despite subsequent attempts to encourage whistleblowing, some still pay a heavy price for speaking up.
And this victimisation discourages others from coming forward.
The NHS National Guardian Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, whose job it is to protect whistleblowers in England, also says too many managers in the health service are still not protecting those who raise concerns from victimisation or bullying.
A record number of more than 25,000 NHS whistleblowers came forward last year - up by a quarter on the year before - raising issues such as patient safety and bullying.
Tristan Reuser, a senior eye surgeon at the main hospital trust in Birmingham, became a whistleblower when he complained about a lack of nursing staff, after he felt he had to use a non-medical colleague to help with an urgent operation.
But instead of addressing the issue, management turned on him, he tells BBC News.
"If you whistleblow, you criticise, essentially, systems - systems designed by senior management," Mr Reuser says.
"So you criticise senior management - and...
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