Graham Pink (19 December 1929 – 6 March 2021) was a

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

and

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

Stepping Hill Hospital Stepping Hill Hospital is in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It is managed by Stockport NHS Foundation Trust. History The facility was first established on Stepping Hill as the Stepping Hill Poor Law Hospital in December 1905. The fac ...

in Stockport, Greater Manchester. He worked in wards for elderly patients and complained about the poor standards of care resulting from insufficient staffing from 1989 to 1993. He also complained about the "inadequacies of his day-shift colleagues in failing to achieve his own perceived standards in such areas as filling in drug and nursing kardexes, ursing recordsand name bands, giving handover reports, washing medicine glasses and removing teacups from lockers at the end of a shift". It has been suggested that one result of his action may have been to undermine the confidence and trust of patients and that his campaign was misguided and political. He was dismissed from his post, accused of breaching patients' confidentiality, when his letters of complaints to Andrew Bennett MP were published by the

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...

in 1990. His campaign became very public and he appeared in national newspapers and on television. He was successful at a subsequent

Industrial Tribunal Employment tribunals are tribunal public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redu ...

against Stockport

Health Authority Between 1996 and 2002 the English National Health Service was organised under the following health authorities. In 2002 the health authorities were reorganised and their boundaries changed to constitute 28 strategic health authorities, which were ...

and was awarded £11,000, the maximum compensation for unfair dismissal at the time. The Health Authority withdrew from the tribunal claiming that the costs of an extended hearing would be exorbitant. The chairman claimed, "winning the case was never central to us. We needed to defend the golden rule of nursing: that of patient confidentiality." His case was said to be part of the reason for the passing of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Before taking up his nursing role, he was a popular teacher specialising in Geography and taught at St.Mary's RC Secondary Modern School in Stretford Manchester. Graham Pink died in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

, South Yorkshire on 6 March 2021 after a long illness. He was aged 91 and was cared for by his family.

Publications by Pink

* ''For Whom the Truth Hurts: Whistleblowing (Violations of Rights in Britain)'' (1992) (with Charter 88) * ''A Time to Speak (Diary of an NHS Whistleblower)'' (2013)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pink, Graham 1929 births 2021 deaths British whistleblowers English nurses Male nurses National Health Service people People from Stockport British memoirists