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It must be pointed out the irony of the situation involved in the legal proceeding, whereby an organisation acting in the role of industry regulator, and tasked to address the concerns raised by whistleblowers within the industry (in fact encourages whistleblowing staff to report - ref 1), handles so poorly whistleblowers within its ranks on its own performance and processes.
Even more, it seems that the CQC seemed to seize upon limited (and potentially contentious or biased) allegations by those affected by the actions of CQC employees in their role as a reason to dismiss the very same CQC employees doing these work, and without a proper right of appeal process as well, a damning lapse of procedural fairness as a government appointed "independent" regulator.
Justice for Dr Kumar must be a long and exhausting journey despite being supported by the BMA (and hopefully the surgical department of the trust where he works as a surgeon) but he had only got there by pure tenacity and perseverance; the BMJ article reporting on the acknowledgement by the CQC's chief executive only "accepted" the Tribunal's decision but did not appear to include an actual apology for the wrongs and distress caused, despite the organisation having to make changes in its internal processes "since 2019", with further improvement in response to the findings.
Certainly I can understand if anyone would have reservations about whistleblowing to the CQC from here on, in view of the ease of blow-back allegations causing personal damage to the whistleblower, particularly when it happens to one of CQC's own.
Can the regulator, set up to address concerns from whistleblowers, handle whistleblowers within its own rank?
Dear Editors
It must be pointed out the irony of the situation involved in the legal proceeding, whereby an organisation acting in the role of industry regulator, and tasked to address the concerns raised by whistleblowers within the industry (in fact encourages whistleblowing staff to report - ref 1), handles so poorly whistleblowers within its ranks on its own performance and processes.
Even more, it seems that the CQC seemed to seize upon limited (and potentially contentious or biased) allegations by those affected by the actions of CQC employees in their role as a reason to dismiss the very same CQC employees doing these work, and without a proper right of appeal process as well, a damning lapse of procedural fairness as a government appointed "independent" regulator.
Justice for Dr Kumar must be a long and exhausting journey despite being supported by the BMA (and hopefully the surgical department of the trust where he works as a surgeon) but he had only got there by pure tenacity and perseverance; the BMJ article reporting on the acknowledgement by the CQC's chief executive only "accepted" the Tribunal's decision but did not appear to include an actual apology for the wrongs and distress caused, despite the organisation having to make changes in its internal processes "since 2019", with further improvement in response to the findings.
Certainly I can understand if anyone would have reservations about whistleblowing to the CQC from here on, in view of the ease of blow-back allegations causing personal damage to the whistleblower, particularly when it happens to one of CQC's own.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Reference
1. https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us/report-concern/report-concern-if-you-a...
Competing interests: No competing interests