Summary
The National Guardian for the NHS has today announced her refreshed vision for the work of the National Guardian’s Office, to improve workplace cultures, ensuring workers are confident to speak up, by providing expert support, guidance and challenge.
Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, National Guardian for the NHS, said: “While progress has been made, there is still a long way to go before we can say that speaking up is business as usual. That is why for our strategic vision we want to move the dial on Freedom to Speak Up. Of course workers should be safe to speak up – safety is the bare minimum – what we are aiming to achieve over the next few years is confidence. This comes when workers feel not only encouraged to raise matters, but that actions will be taken when they do.”
The National Guardian’s Office has set out its six strategic goals to achieve the National Guardian’s vision, improving existing services as well as making some step changes to drive further change across the system. These are:
- Continuing to improve resources and offer to Freedom to Speak Up guardians
- Developing additional support and guidance for organisational leaders
- Using the National Guardian’s independent voice to champion Freedom to Speak Up and challenge the healthcare system by raising awareness of issues which affect workers’ confidence to speak up
- Using the insight gathered by the National Guardian’s Office to drive recommendations to improve speak up measures and culture, for example through Speak Up Reviews, and challenging organisations to do better.
- Improving partnership working with key organisations to deliver change
- Improve the organisational maturity and internal infrastructure of the National Guardian’s Office to support these ambitions
Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, said: “It is of concern to me that this year’s NHS Staff Survey results show a lack of improvement nationally in the responses to the questions about speaking up. A lasting cultural shift is needed to realise the ambition of making speaking up business as usual. This strategy will give the National Guardian’s Office the framework for us to provide the expert advice, support and challenge to help make that change.”
See the NGO’s Strategy on a page
Read Jayne’s blog about our strategy