The National Guardian’s Office and the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian were established following recommendations from Sir Robert Francis QC’s 2015 report, “The Freedom to Speak Up.” Here Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, National Guardian for the NHS, outlines how listening puts people at the heart of social care.
Our people are the key to organisational success. The culture of an organisation has been shown to impact safety innovation, learning, performance and workforce well-being.
Listening to our people when they speak up is the cornerstone of putting people at the heart of social care. While there are many ways for people to speak up, sometimes they may be fearful that they might be victimised for speaking up or they have tried to raise matters before and been blocked or ignored. Their potential silence may put the people in our care at risk.
About Freedom to Speak Up guardians
Freedom to Speak Up guardians provide an additional channel for workers to speak up to when they feel they cannot do so in other ways, and work proactively to support a positive speaking up culture.
There are now over 1,200 Freedom to Speak Up guardians working throughout healthcare in England. My office leads, trains and supports a network of Freedom to Speak Up guardians in England and conducts Speak Up reviews to identify learning and support improvement of the speaking up culture of the healthcare sector. We also provide learning to the healthcare system as a whole, disseminating good practice and providing challenge to tackle barriers to speaking up.
Freedom to Speak Up in social care
In December 2021, the previous government decide not to take forward a previous commitment on Freedom to Speak Up in Adult Social Care. I was disappointed with the announcement, while understanding financial constraints, but I hope that Freedom to Speak Up guardians can be formally implemented in Adult Social Care in the future.
Informally, many organisations are seeking to provide their people with an impartial person to speak up to, if they are not able to through routes such as line managers and HR. Some Trusts in England have social care organisations within their groups who are supported by guardians, and Leeds Local Authority have implemented the guardian model with Freedom to Speak Up guardians trained using our resources.
Listening leaders
When people feel psychologically safe to speak up, they can help organisations learn and improve. Only by listening to understand can we take the action needed for speaking up to make a difference.
For this October’s Speak Up Month, our theme is Listen Up and we will focusing on the power of listening, and the important part which listening plays in encouraging people to feel confident to speak up. Confidence to speak up comes from knowing that if you speak up, you will be listened to and that appropriate action will be taken.
Care providers have and important role promoting a Speak Up, Listen Up, Follow Up culture in their organisations. A great culture attracts and retains the best workers. In a time when workforce shortages are so high, this is invaluable.
My vision for Freedom to Speak Up in social care
As the health and care sector becomes more integrated, it is vital that speaking up is available to all workers across the patient pathway.
The interconnected nature of the health and care sectors mean that Freedom to Speak Up should not be limited to only health providers. An ambulance worker may have witnessed inappropriate behaviours in a care home; an allied health professional may want to share good practice ideas across different services they visit; a pharmacist may be concerned about fraudulent prescriptions in a resident’s name.
Workers speak up because they want the best for the people in their care. My vision is that everyone, no matter where they work in health and care, has effective routes to speaking up, including access to a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian. So that we might give our best to the people we care for.
@NatGuardianFTSU
nationalguardianoffice.org.uk
