Every year in October the National Guardian’s Office, together with Freedom to Speak Up guardians and leaders, managers and workers across the healthcare sector, celebrate Speak Up Month – a month to raise awareness of Freedom to Speak Up and make speaking up business as usual for everyone.
The theme for our fifth Speak Up Month is “Freedom to Speak Up for Everyone” with each week having a specific focus – to Speak Up for Safety, Civility and Inclusion.
The safety of patients, service users and colleagues is a number one priority. We should be able to speak up about anything which gets in the way of doing our job. That could be something that affects patient safety, or the quality of care or the experience or safety of colleagues, or an idea for improvement. #SpeakUpForSafety
Civility in the workplace is so important. Incivility in the form of belittling, shouting, undermining or micro-aggression has a big impact on both patient safety and the well-being of workers. These are all speaking up matters.
The link between civility and Freedom to Speak Up is crucial. If you are concerned that the response you might receive will be rude it can act as a barrier to speaking up, leading to patient harm.
A civil and positive speaking up culture foster an environment of psychological safety where teamwork thrives and people feel empowered to speak up about behaviour and also to bring great ideas. #SpeakUpForCivility
Inclusion is at the heart of Freedom to Speak Up. As the People Promise says – we each have a voice that counts. October is also Black History Month so the perfect time to think about how we can all #SpeakUpForInclusion..
Freedom to Speak Up should be available for everyone. #FTSUForEveryone brings together all professions, worker groups and sectors, both within health and social care and beyond.
We want to make speaking up business as usual for everyone; regardless of job role, background or circumstance.
The National Guardians Office are encouraging everyone to take part in “Wear Green Wednesdays” throughout October to show their visible support for Freedom to Speak Up. Everyone needs to play their part to create the right environment for workers to speak up.
If you would like to get involved in Speak Up Month, whether that’s by contributing a blog, a message of support or your own speaking up story, do get in touch and follow along on this website.
Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark will be talking to leaders on our Speak Up Month themes in special editions of our Speak Up, Listen Up, Follow Up podcast.
We’ll be getting Stuck in a Lift with some Freedom to Speak Up guardians.
And we’ll be publishing blogs and videos from voices throughout healthcare reflecting on speaking up, safety, civility and inclusion.
Follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn. We’ll be using the hashtag #FTSUforEveryone.