A summary of speaking up to Freedom to Speak Up Guardians: 1 April 2022 - 31 March 2023 (National Guardian's Office, 6 July 2023)

Summary

The role of Freedom to Speak Up Guardians is to support staff working in healthcare raise concerns about their workplace. In this report, the National Guardian’s Office provides an overview of the latest annual speaking up data, summarising the themes and learning from information shared by Freedom to Speak Up guardians.

Content

This report summarises the cases raised with Freedom to Speak Up guardians from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. Freedom to Speak Up guardians submit non-identifiable information to the National Guardian’s Office about the speaking up cases raised with them. The findings in this report are based on this information. Some key findings from this include:

• There has been a 25% increase in the number of cases brought to Freedom to Speak Up Guardians compared to 2021-2022, with 25,382 cases in 2022-2023.
• There has been a decline in the proportion of cases reported anonymously, this year accounting for 9.3% of all cases.
• One in every four cases raised (27.4%) involved an element of worker safety or wellbeing.

Patient safety and quality

In 2022/23, 19% of cases (19.3% or 4,898) involved an element of patient safety and quality, a similar proportion as reported in 2021/22 (18.8% or 3,838). 94.2% of the patient safety and quality cases raised with Freedom to Speak Up guardians were raised with guardians supporting NHS trusts.

In the 2022 NHS Staff Survey there was a fall in the proportion of workers who said that they would feel secure to raise concerns about unsafe clinical practice, this is a risk to patient safety. Examples of cases that workers raised with Freedom to Speak Up guardians about patient safety or quality included:

•  Health and safety concerns
• Infection prevention and control
• Medication management and prescribing
• Requirement for full debriefs after clinical incidents
• Requirement for improved staff supervision and training

Related reading

• National Guardian’s Office: Fear and futility - What does the Staff Survey tell us about speaking up in the NHS (8 June 2023)
• Still not safe to speak up: NHS Staff Survey Results 2022 (Patient Safety Learning blog, 23 March 2023)