Whistle Blowing

WHISTLE BLOWING 1

Institution Affiliation

Whistleblowing is the action whereby members of an organizationreveal immoral, illegal, or illegitimate practices by the employerthat are under his control to the individuals or bodies who may beable to influence change. In the healthcare sector, whistleblowing has been seen as aparticular focus for change, and it is when health workers, includingmidwives, and student nurses, bring out a concern about malpracticein the public interest. According to Huston(2013), whistleblowing canbe done inside the organizations’ setup, or to a &quotprescribedperson,&quot and it should be within the conditions and criteria setby the law. During the course of their work, the healthcare personnelmay identify risks or malpractices that need to be raised to theattention of the healthcare managers. These issues could be thoseaffecting the public, patients, healthcare providers or the healthorganization at large. Whistleblowing is significant as a way ofhighlighting these concerns, and it assists in promoting openness,transparency, and accountability in the work environment. It alsoenables the providers to be able to learn from situations, avoidfuture concerns and therefore protect the public (Jackson,Hickman, Hutchinson, Andrew, Smith, Potgieter &amp Peters 2014).Internal whistleblowing should be differentiated with externalwhistleblowing, whereby the former is when people report within theirorganization, while external is when they employ channels external tothe organization. Furthermore, there is a difference between raisingconcerns and whistleblowing (Jackson,Peters, Hutchinson, Edenborough, Luck &amp Wilkes 2011). Theconcept of whistleblowing has been widely discussed in healthcare andbusiness literature, dating back to the 1960s. This paper will lookat the various elements of whistleblowing, as well as its applicationin the nursing set up.

References

Huston, C. I. (2013).Whistle-Blowing in Nursing. ProfessionalIssues in Nursing:Challenges andOpportunities, 250.

Jackson, D., Peters, K.,Hutchinson, M., Edenborough, M., Luck, L., &amp Wilkes, L. (2011).Exploring confidentiality in the context of nurse whistle blowing:Issues for nurse managers. Journalof nursing management,19(5), 655-663.

Jackson, D., Hickman, L. D.,Hutchinson, M., Andrew, S., Smith, J., Potgieter, I., … &ampPeters, K. (2014). Whistleblowing: an integrative literature reviewof data-based studies involving nurses. Contemporarynurse, 48(2), 240-252.