Can whistleblowing and whistleblowers help addressing institutional corruption? The case study of care failure in National Health System in England

Preventing corruption and restoring public confidence in wrongdoing institutions requires an understanding of the mechanisms that drive institutional corruption. I examine organizational wrongdoing in the context of public health institutions, to elucidate how institutional corruption ensues from organizational and individual responses to polices that induce divergence from the primary institutional task and duty of care. Specifically, I show how policy changes imposing the logic of business competition on the UK’s public health services adversely influenced organizational and individual behaviours in two prominent cases of care

failure in NHS England. The analysis further highlights the essential role of whistleblowers in exposing and ultimately addressing these institutional failures. The paper concludes by calling for more protective measures to enable whistleblowers to speak out without fear of retaliation.