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NHS FIRED A NURSE FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT DYING PATIENTS Graham Pink was a 57-year-old night charge nurse at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport. He looked after 23 severely ill elderly patients at a time. On his ward, there was one qualified nurse and two healthcare assistants. That was it. He said the patients he cared for had survived the Second World War. They deserved better than this. So he did what you're supposed to do. He wrote letters. To his managers. To the hospital. To his MP. He asked for three more nurses per night. Three. The request was refused because, and this is real, it would set a precedent for other hospitals. God forbid. When his letters ended up on the front page of The Guardian in 1990, Stockport Health Authority (@StockportNHS) sacked him for breaching patient confidentiality. The patients whose neglect he was exposing, apparently, had their confidentiality to think about. The Health Minister at the time was asked in Parliament whether he'd congratulate Pink for his courage. He said no. He said Pink's allegations weren't supported by colleagues or clinicians. Classic. Pink fought a five-year tribunal battle. He won in 1993. The Health Authority pulled out before it could get worse for them, claiming the legal costs were too high. They awarded him £11,188. The maximum allowed. Then didn't reinstate him. His nursing career was finished. His lawyer called it a triumph for those whose priority is care for patients over those whose first care is for balance sheets. Pink went on to campaign for proper whistleblower protection. His case was cited in Parliament when the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 was being drafted. The law that was supposed to stop this happening again. The law that still gets ignored on a regular basis. He wrote a book about it in 2013. He died in 2021, aged 91, cared for by nurses who told his family it was an honour to look after him. The system that punished him is still running. Source: The Guardian, Wikipedia, Nursing Standard,