While every member of the nursing community hopes that blowing the whistle will never be necessary, mounting staff pressures can jeopardise patient safety.

It’s important to know when to speak up, how you're protected from any adverse consequences, and the support you can rely on.

What does being a whistleblower mean in practice? Isn’t it just raising concerns?

Not exactly, says Emma Greenbank, RCN Senior Legal Officer and solicitor. “Whistleblowing is set out in legislation and that’s the best way to understand what it means,” she says. “Raising a complaint or concern isn’t necessarily whistleblowing for the purposes of the law.”

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 provides legal protections for whistleblowers who disclose wrongdoing in the public interest. To be a “qualifying disclosure” – which has the protection of the law – it should include one or more of these issues:

• a criminal offence, for example: fraud, abuse or theft
• danger to someone’s health and safety – “almost all the cases we deal with involve this issue,” says Emma
• risk or actual damage to the environment
• a miscarriage of justice
• the organisation is breaking the law
• you believe someone is concealing wrongdoing, which must relate to one of the categories above.

You can make a disclosure about an issue that’s happened at any time, including if you think it’s likely to happen in the future.

What rights do I have as a whistleblower?

“Whistleblowing is a protected disclosure,” says Emma.

“This means you...

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