Transformative learning programme to improve workplace wellbeing and cut business costs

Organisations across the UK and beyond are set to benefit from a unique NHS- academic partnership which sees a focus on staff safety and morale – and delivers significant cost savings.

Together Northumbria University and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust are pioneering professional development courses on Restorative Just Culture. This approach at the Liverpool-based Trust has seen reduced dismissals and suspensions, leading to substantial business savings, and has generated great interest across the health sector.

Starting in 2016 Mersey Care has worked to deliver a Restorative Just Culture. And despite increasing its workforce by 135%, the Trust has since seen an 85% reduction in disciplinary investigations and a 95% reduction in suspensions – helping them drive down costs significantly. During the same period, it has also seen improved staff engagement and safety culture scores as measured by the NHS national staff survey.

Mersey Care’s Executive Director of Workforce Amanda Oates says: “Mersey Care started on our journey towards a Restorative Just and Learning Culture after conversations with our staff about the barriers staff faced delivering the best care that they could possibly give."

“The feedback was overwhelmingly about the fear of blame if something didn't go as expected. This was preventing staff from telling us what wasn’t working. More importantly, it was preventing the opportunity for learning from those things to prevent them from happening again. As a Board, we had the conversation - are we looking at problems the wrong way?”

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Source: FE News, 27 October 2020