This October the independent health sector is delighted to be celebrating Freedom to Speak up Month.
There are currently almost 500 Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in the sector (a 50% rise in the last year alone) and here at IHPN, we firmly believe that “speaking up” is hugely important in fostering a safe and open culture. Not only does it help ensure that concerns and issues can raised, it is also key to developing a culture where employees feel free to share information and contribute new ideas and initiatives – all of which help improve the care we provide to patients.
Of course, “speaking up” means nothing if you’re not being listened to and that’s why this year’s theme – “Listen Up” – is a particularly important one.
Listening is about being curious, seeking to understand, to learn and to take action – helping ensure that speaking up really does make a difference and is a core part of our day to day working.
In representing a sector which cares for millions of people every year, IHPN are proud to work closely with the National Guardian’s office and we were delighted to have Dr Jayne Chidgey Clark speak at our annual patient safety conference earlier this year where she spoke about the importance of having open cultures so staff can feel they can speak up not just about safety issues, but about broader issues of improvement. As befits this year’s theme of “listening up”, what followed Jayne’s speech was a fascinating discussion with members attending about how it feels for leaders to be on the receiving end of “speaking up” and the importance of “listening with fascination” and not taking a defensive stance.
Such an approach demands curiosity and, more often than not, humility. As one of our members David Henerson, Director at Nuffield Health’s The Holly Hospital, says “our staff know better than I do about how we make the journey easier and safer for our patients…it is therefore crucial our people feel they can speak – and that we listen.”
Indeed, there’s some excellent work taking place in the independent health sector, not just to foster a speaking up culture but really take action to listen, understand and make improvements.
Alongside Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark at our safety conference this year, we had the opportunity to hear from Spire Healthcare about what they are doing to foster an open, listening culture. This includes their CEO holding a “listening session” with its Guardian network to discuss the annual Guardian survey results, as well as their Corporate Concerns Director holding quarterly listening sessions with the network. Guardians also hold ‘drop in’ and ‘support and solve’ sessions to address the ‘grit in the shoe’ as they put it, ensuring that listening, learning and action are a core part of the speaking up process.
Likewise, Ramsay Health Care, through their Speaking Up for Safety programme in partnership with the Cognitive Institute , are helping to empower their staff to raise any concerns they have. This has led to the identification of potential (and very rare!) issues with wrong site surgery, incorrect prosthesis, inaccurate medication prescriptions, all of which were acted on, thereby preventing unintended patient harm.
This October, I’m therefore encouraging our members, and indeed all parts of the healthcare system, to “listen with fascination”, to not “comfort seek” and “ask questions with curiosity” . And I’ll leave the final word to Nuffield Health Freedom to Speak Up Guardian at the Holly Hospital – “speaking up [only] works if you have good leaders who want to listen and follow up on concerns”.