Tribunal to consider whistle-blowing former auxiliary nurse’s case

Joan Corrigan (44) will begin the tribunal proceedings on Thursday, which she expects could last up to two weeks.

Ms. Corrigan – who rejected a joint offer of £15,000 from the Western Trust and the agency – claimed the offer was simply made "to make me go away".

"Next [Thursday] will hopefully be the start of the end of five years of hell,” she told The Impartial Reporter.

Ms. Corrigan claimed she had exposed poor standards of care at Altnagelvin Hospital, which prompted an internal Western Trust report. She described the report as a “whitewash”, and alleged she was pressured out of her job following her complaints.

"The reasons I have been forced to go to the tribunal are that I have been treated so horrendously, so horrifically and so unfairly and unlawfully.

“All I was trying to do was my job to keep people safe,” Ms. Corrigan claimed.

She further claimed that her former agency and the Western Trust bullied and victimised her.

Representing herself, she said the Western Trust failed to uphold its legal obligations under the Health and Safety Act (Northern Ireland) to provide good care and ensure patient safety.

Ms. Corrigan, who is now teaching English in Spain, reflected on her time at Altnagelvin, and recalled an incident in January, 2019 that triggered her whistleblowing.

She described a situation in which an older man in psychological distress was left soiled and embarrassed, and claimed staff ignored her calls for assistance.

“The first thing that happened on that night was that I needed help from [Western] Trust staff to change the pad of a large older man who was in psychological distress, as he had soiled and wet himself.

“He was clearly embarrassed and ashamed, and wanted the situation to be over as soon as possible.

“I tried to help him by pressing a buzzer, which was a call to the staff that he needed help.

“But the calls were ignored as some of the staff were going out for smokes,” she alleged.

Ms. Corrigan further claimed: “When I went looking for someone to help me, I could not get anyone to help me.

“One of the two people who should have been helping me was making toast.

“That is not an essential duty, but there were issues with some of the care assistants and their attitude towards nurses.

“I was worried about this man and the fact that some patients were being left in soiled and soaked beds for much longer than they should have been.

“Eventually he was relieved, and I had to raise a huge fuss, and this was not an isolated incident as when I went for my break I heard one old woman cry out in pain but nobody was answering her buzzer because they were either drinking coffee or going for smoke breaks," she alleged.

However, when Ms. Corrigan raised her concerns, they were dismissed, she told this newspaper.

“I was told that that I was talking nonsense, and I was wrong. The atmosphere was very hostile, and I now know that they should have got me to make a written statement there and then but that did not happen,” she alleged.

“There was no response, and I was criticised and ostracised, and I was very annoyed about what happened.

“They closed ranks and their whole strategy was to deny and discredit me,” she alleged.

“I was told that I had an attitude problem, and they also said that I wasn’t needed, so they had two different stories.”

Ms. Corrigan then made a whistleblower disclosure after her initial concerns were ignored.

“It was initially made verbally to a nurse in charge.

"I then wrote it in email format to my agency, then to Human Resources at the [Western] Trust, and then to Adult Safeguarding at the Trust.

"Months later, I lodged my formal complaint with the Northern Ireland Employment Tribunal in June, 2019.

“It took the [Western] Trust two months to interview the staff, and there were a lot of excuses and protocols were not properly followed,” Ms. Corrigan claimed.

She further claimed that instead of taking her complaints, she was subjected to a number of counter complaints and told she was not welcome back on the ward.

“All my concerns were about how the patients were being dealt with and I could not believe what I was seeing."

Ms. Corrigan felt she was being hounded from her job, so she left for Spain later in 2019.

“A joint offer of £15,000 was made to me in December, 2023, but they wanted me to sign a non-disclosure clause so that I could not publicly criticise the Trust or the agency ever again, or apply for jobs with either of them ever again, and that I would drop proceedings.

“They say they made the offer to save them money at the tribunal where they will be legally represented,” Ms. Corrigan claimed.

When asked what she now wanted from the Western Trust and the agency, she said: “I would be interested in a settlement that would reflect the seriousness of what I have gone through in the past five years, as well as an apology and donations to whistleblowing charities and disability charities.

“I will not be signing any document or any non-disclosure agreement telling me that I can’t say A, B or C, and I believe I deserve a significant amount of compensation for what I have lost and endured.”

When asked to put a figure on a “significant amount”, she said: “I don’t really know the answer to that, and I am still indecisive about that.

“If I win my case I will be getting compensation from the tribunal.”

Ms. Corrigan is not represented legally, but she has set out a 7,000 word document Witness Statement, and a Schedule of Loss, which outlines the psychological and psychiatric damage she says she has suffered due to "the loss of work, defamation, the stress, the abuse, the insomnia, anxiety, the headaches and everything".

“All parties were given those documents in March,” added Ms. Corrigan.

Meanwhile, the Western Health and Social Care Trust arranged an investigation into Ms. Corrigan’s complaints, and it concluded in the summer of 2019.

While it rejected claims that patient care was at risk, recommendations which Ms. Corrigan got via disclosure in the spring of 2023 appear to show a number of recommendations, including that “all staff should be reminded that call bells need [to be] prioritised over other aspects of non-urgent care".

The report also recommended that “consideration to reviewing the culture and practice within the ward should be taken”.

It also recommended that “manual handling training is to be given priority for all ward staff".

It further recommended consideration “to reviewing the rotas, particularly on night shift, to ensure the composition of teams are not static for lengthy periods, which may provide an opportunity for complacency”.

However, she told The Impartial Reporter that the recommendations were “useless”, claiming “no disciplinary action was taken, nobody was sanctioned, nobody was taken off the ward and everyone was still working, and some people were promoted, so in my opinion the ward is not any safer".

Continuing, she claimed: “Nobody was reported to the Care Regulator.

“Recommendations are just what the [Western] Trust always say - that there has been learning, but nobody was ever held to account,” she alleged.

Ms. Corrigan added: “In my claims to the tribunal, I can’t apply for Unfair Dismissal, as I was working as an agency worker.

“But I am relying on the law which is under The Public Interest Disclosure (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, which provides protection for any individual who makes a qualifying disclosure (also referred to as whistleblowing) in good faith to their employer or other third party against dismissal or detriment for making the disclosure.

“I am seeking compensation and an apology.

“But it is very important that more people speak out for the vulnerable, as they often have no voice, and I see myself as a voice for the voiceless in this case.

"Having a learning disabled, non-verbal sister, has me always cognisant of my responsibility to protect her and those like her."

Ms. Corrigan will be cross-examined starting Thursday, September 19 in Killymeal House, Belfast.

When contacted by The Impartial Reporter about the issues raised above, a spokesperson for the Western Health and Social Care Trust said: “We do not comment on individuals due to confidentiality reasons.

“The Western Trust encourages all staff to make management aware of issues giving them concern through the whistleblowing process.

“Any concern we receive is subject to a process of investigation.

"Whistleblowing investigations are of a fact-finding nature, and all relevant learning is shared as appropriate and taken forward by the [Western] Trust.”

The Impartial Reporter also contacted First Choice, but had not received a response by the time of going to print.