HOSPITAL staff in Worcestershire should feel able to raise concerns whenever they arise, one of the county’s senior health bosses has said.

The comments by chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust Harry Turner came after paramedic and union rep Stuart Gardner slammed the hospital for what he claimed were poor standards of care at the hospital.

Although Mr Gardner was banned from the site for his comments, this has since been lifted and the trust has apologised to him for the incident.

Mr Turner said he and his colleagues did everything they could to make sure staff felt able to raise concerns.

“I do not accept that this trust does not take whistleblowing seriously,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be associated with an organisation that didn’t listen to its people.

“Recently someone emailed me with a letter saying they were concerned patients were being moved around in gowns and the privacy issues that could cause.

“We published that in our staff brief that goes out to everyone in the trust.”

But he said the organisation – which runs the Royal, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital – was also looking into ways it could improve this process in the wake of Mr Gardner’s concerns.

“We are looking around the country to see where the experts are,” he said.

“At the moment every whistleblowing letter we get gets put into the system.

“The audit committee looks at it to see if it’s been dealt with properly, and if we can publish it we will.

“Staff can come in and talk to me at any time – I think that’s the right way to do it.”