What is Whistleblowing?
Whistleblowing is about raising concerns when you feel that someone or something is unsafe in your workplace. It is speaking out about things that you may have seen or heard that are abusive or neglectful or may be putting the clients that you work with or yourself at risk.
At PrimeLife it is not just about those working in our care homes reporting issues they may have seen or heard, but also friends, visitors and residents as well.
Why Might You Need to Raise Concerns?
PrimeLife has a ZERO tolerance of abuse and neglect.
All employees of PrimeLife have signed up to a code of conduct, which includes the responsibility to:
- Be accountable for your actions and omissions.
- Promote and uphold the privacy, dignity, rights, health & wellbeing of residents at all times.
At times, staff, visitors, friends, relatives or residents themselves may feel they need to speak out if they feel someone is being bullied, harassed, abused in any way or neglected in order to protect those people and keep them safe.
How Can Staff Raise Concerns at PrimeLife?
All of our staff are trained and aware of the reporting procedures they should follow to report behaviour that they feel is wrong or inappropriate. These procedures include
Speaking out to raise concerns can be a hard decision as you may feel that you are being disloyal or causing additional problems. However you must remember that by raising concerns at an early stage you can often stop the issue from becoming more serious. You can find out more about the types of concerns to raise by reading the Prime Life Whistleblowing ‘Raising Concerns’ Policy. There are also several bite size learning sheets that cover Safeguarding, Abuse and Neglect which will help you to identify if something is wrong in your workplace.
Prime Life encourages its staff to report issues as soon as possible using the following routes;
- Report directly to your Senior or Manager
- Report to a Regional or Associate Director
- Report to Managing Director or other senior board member
- Use the dedicated, confidential, free phone 24hr Prime Life Whistleblowing Helpline 0333 313 1817
How Can Friends, Relatives, Visitors or Clients Raise Concerns?
Within all of our homes, we have created a dedicated pack of literature, including a poster and leaflet which are easily and clearly displayed in communal areas. As well as these items, we have also launched our new dedicated freephone whistleblowing number.
All visitors to our home who wish to report a concern are encouraged to speak to the care home manager directly. If someone feels unable to do this then they can call the freephone whistleblowing number. This number is a dedicated service only for whistleblowing; it is operated 24 hours and a day and is completely confidential.
Whistleblowing freephone number 0333 313 1817
What Happens After You Have Raised a Concern?
After your concern has been raised it will be logged and you will receive a response within 24hrs (if you are happy to be contacted and have provided your details). The issue will then be investigated and any appropriate action taken. To help the process of investigation it is important to give as much information as possible, be specific about dates, times, what happened and the order of events, who was involved and whether there were any witnesses.