Healthcare whistleblowing references — speaking up history and raising concerns

Why references should ask about raising concerns in healthcare

The Freedom to Speak Up framework requires healthcare organisations to create an environment where staff feel safe to raise concerns about patient safety, clinical practice and organisational behaviour. For prospective employers, a candidate's history of raising concerns — and how those concerns were responded to — provides useful information about their professional character and values. A candidate who has raised patient safety concerns appropriately in previous roles demonstrates the professional values that safe healthcare organisations want to recruit.

What whistleblowing reference questions address

Healthcare reference templates can include questions asking whether the candidate has raised patient safety or clinical quality concerns during their employment, how those concerns were responded to by the organisation, and whether the candidate experienced any detriment as a result of raising concerns. These questions surface two categories of relevant information: they reveal the candidate's professional values and willingness to speak up; and they can reveal whether a previous employer silenced or penalised a candidate for legitimate concern-raising.

RefAssure healthcare templates can include optional speaking up and whistleblowing questions alongside mandatory safeguarding suitability and professional conduct fields. For NHS organisations with a statutory duty to support speaking up, reference templates that actively assess speaking up history demonstrate a commitment to Freedom to Speak Up principles in the recruitment process. From 99p per reference, no subscription.