The National Guardian’s Office welcomes the report by the Health Services Safety Investigation Body: Workforce and patient safety: temporary staff – integration into healthcare providers
Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, National Guardian for the NHS said:
“We will implement HSSIB’s safety recommendation that the National Guardian’s Office will work with stakeholders to identify the barriers that prevent temporary staff from speaking up and develop mechanisms to address those barriers. This builds upon our work exploring the barriers to speaking up to improve workplace cultures so that all workers – no matter what their contract terms – are confident to speak up.
“Given the critical role which temporary workers play in the NHS, it is vital that we ensure that they feel confident to speak up about patient safety and not fear they will lose future opportunities to work in that organisation. Temporary workers can offer valuable insights into practices and quality of care. Freedom to Speak Up guardians are available to all workers – this includes temporary, agency and bank staff.
“I echo HSSIB’s recommendation for local level learning and for leaders to ask themselves: How do you ensure that temporary staff know how to speak up and that they feel safe to raise concerns?”