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

nurse Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...

and

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

Stepping Hill Hospital Stepping Hill Hospital is in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It is managed by Stockport NHS Foundation Trust. History The facility was established as the Stepping Hill Poor Law Hospital in 1905. It became a military hospital during the ...

in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Pink's complaints about inadequacies in medical standards

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, Unit ...

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

Health Authority Between 1996 and 2002, the National Health Service in England and Wales was organised under health authorities (HAs). There were 95 HAs at the time of their abolition in England in 2002, and they reported to the eight regional offices of the NHS ...

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 The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (c. 23) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that protects whistleblowers from detrimental treatment by their employer. Influenced by various financial scandals and accidents, along with the r ...

Death

Graham Pink died in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

, 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 Charter 88 was a British pressure group that advocated constitutional and electoral reform and owes its origins to the lack of a written constitution. It began as a special edition of the ''New Statesman'' magazine in 1988 and it took its name fr ...

) * ''A Time to Speak (Diary of an NHS Whistleblower)'' (2013).

Memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pink, Graham 1929 births 2021 deaths 20th-century British educators 20th-century British letter writers 20th-century nurses 21st-century British memoirists British whistleblowers English nurses Male nurses National Health Service people People from Stockport