Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Speaking up'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 441 results
  1. News Article
    Conduct guidelines for UK doctors are being updated to spell out what constitutes workplace sexual harassment, amid concerns abuse is going unchallenged. The General Medical Council, which regulates doctors to ensure they are safe and fit to care for patients, says it is adopting a zero-tolerance policy. The new advice explains it is not just physical acts that can be a breach. Verbal and written comments or sharing images with a colleague count too. The new guidance will not come into effect until the end of January, after a five-month familiarisation period for staff. And some say there is still a long way to go. Dr Chelcie Jewitt, an emergency-medicine doctor who is part of the Surviving in Scrubs campaign group, which aims to raise awareness of sexism, harassment and sexual assault in the healthcare workforce, said: "We have spoken with the GMC about the guidelines and we do think that they are a step in the right direction - but there is still a long way to go on this journey to eradicating the culture of sexual misconduct within healthcare. "The GMC has the potential to make a real difference and we need to see them supporting victims when they report perpetrators. "We need their reporting processes to be transparent and clearly explained to victims. "We need cases to be thoroughly investigated rather than dismissed. "And we need appropriate, proportionate sanctioning of perpetrators." Read full story Source: BBC News, 22 August 2023 Read a blog Dr Chelcie Jewitt wrote for the hub: Calling out the sexist and misogynist culture within healthcare
  2. News Article
    Lucy Letby sat with her parents in a meeting with senior managers at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where she worked, waiting patiently for an apology. She had prepared a statement that was read out by her parents to Tony Chambers, the hospital’s chief executive, about being bullied and victimised on the neonatal unit. It was December 22, 2016, and for the previous 18 months, two doctors on the unit had been trying to find an answer for a series of mysterious deaths of babies. Their detective work had led them to a single common denominator: Letby. The neonatal nurse had been on shift for each of the incidents. Rumours of a killer on the ward had spread and Letby had complained about the doctors and their finger-pointing, claiming she was being wrongly blamed. Chambers, who had trained as a nurse, was convinced by Letby’s account, and in front of her parents, John and Susan, offered sincere apologies on behalf of the hospital trust. The doctors in question would be “dealt with’’. Except the doctors were right. By that point Letby had secretly murdered seven babies and tried to kill six more, one of them twice. An investigation by The Sunday Times, based on a cache of internal documents, reveals in detail how the hospital delayed calling the police for months and that senior management, including the board, sided with Letby against doctors after commissioning perfunctory investigations. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 19 August 2023
  3. Content Article
    Babies would have survived if hospital executives had acted earlier on concerns about the nurse Lucy Letby, a senior doctor who raised the alarm has said. In an exclusive Guardian interview, Dr Stephen Brearey accused the Countess of Chester hospital trust of being “negligent” and failing to properly address concerns he and other doctors raised about Letby as she carried out her killings. Brearey was the first to alert a hospital executive to the fact that Letby was present at unusual deaths and collapses of babies in June 2015. The paediatrician and his consultant colleagues raised concerns multiple times over months before Letby, then 26, was finally removed from the neonatal unit in July 2016. The police were contacted almost a year later, in May 2017. Speaking publicly for the first time, Brearey told the Guardian that executives should have contacted the police in February 2016 when he escalated concerns about Letby and asked for an urgent meeting.
  4. Content Article
    Understanding of the significance of psychological safety has grown over recent years as we see the implications of people not speaking out—a culture that forces people to conceal rather than reveal. Concealing observations, ideas and thoughts can lead to major events that are harmful to organisations as much as individuals. Sometimes, individuals feel it is imperative to speak out somewhere, which leads to whistleblowing. This article looks at how to identify whether a workplace has a psychologically safe culture and how to transform cultures where staff don't feel able to speak up. It describes The Wellbeing and Performance Agenda, which contains six elements for building psychological safety: Transforming managers into leaders Psychological responsibility Sharing responsibility for the future success of the organisation Adaptive and positive culture Intelligent management Safe and resilient individuals
  5. News Article
    An ambulance trust accused of hiding information from a coroner about patients that died is keeping a damning internal report about the deaths secret, the Guardian can reveal. A consultant paramedic implicated in the alleged cover-ups continues to be involved in decisions to keep the report from the public. Earlier this month, North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) apologised to relatives after a review into claims it covered up errors by paramedics and withheld evidence from the local coroner about the deceased patients. But a bereaved family left in the dark about mistakes made before their daughter’s death have rejected the apology. Now, it has emerged that a 2020 internal interim report on the alleged cover-up continues to be kept secret by the trust. The damning report by consultants AuditOne has been leaked to the Guardian after first being exposed by the Sunday Times. Paul Aitken-Fell, a consultant paramedic blamed in the report for amending information sent to the coroner and removing crucial passages about mistakes by the trust’s paramedics, remains in post. He also holds the gatekeeper role of FoI review officer, and as such has endorsed decisions to refuse to release the report to members of the public who ask for it. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 July 2023
  6. Event
    This conference is for staff involved in managing concerns in NHS Scotland, including the promotion, delivery, and use of the Whistleblowing Standards. The Independent National Whistleblowing Office are supporting the event. It will explore the legislative requirements around whistleblowing and the benefits of effective management of concerns. The programme concludes with a focus on what a healthy speak up culture looks like and how that can be delivered. The day will be chaired by John Sturrock, KC, and include a keynote presentation from Rosemary Agnew, the Independent National Whistleblowing Officer. It also brings together expert speakers from NHS Scotland, Scottish Government, trade union and academia with expertise in speaking up, culture change, quality, safety and candour. The programme will consider the Whistleblowing Standards since their launch in April 2021, as they approach their anticipated 3-year review. It offers an opportunity to share good practice, support ongoing improvements and promote an effective Speak Up culture that works from the bedside to the boardroom. Programme Register
  7. News Article
    Just one in five staff who were approached in a trust’s internal inquiry – prompted by an undercover broadcast raising serious care concerns – engaged with the process, a report has revealed. Essex Partnership University Foundation Trust said it took “immediate action” to investigate issues highlighted in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme into two acute mental health wards last year. This included speaking to staff identified as a high priority in the investigation. However, a new Care Quality Commission report has revealed, of the 61 staff members the trust approached, only 12 engaged with the process. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 July 2023
  8. Content Article
    NHS England commissioned a limited scope independent review into patient safety concerns and governance processes related to the North East Ambulance Service. Chaired by Dame Marianne Griffiths DBE, the review considered the facts surrounding a number of individual cases, reviewed the processes surrounding coronial investigations and reviewed the seven previous investigations and reviews undertaken by the ambulance service to determine if they were sufficient to fully understand and resolve issues.
  9. News Article
    An ambulance service has apologised to families following a review into claims it covered up errors by paramedics and withheld evidence from coroners. The families of a teenager and a 62-year-old man were not told paramedics' responses were being investigated by North East Ambulance Service (NEAS). The deaths, in 2018 and 2019, were raised by a whistleblower last year. Among the findings of the independent review carried out by Dame Marianne Griffiths, were inaccuracies in information provided to the coroner, employees who were "fearful of speaking up" and "poor behaviour by senior staff". The study, commissioned by the former health secretary Sajid Javid in August, examined four of the five cases that were highlighted by the whistleblower, initially in The Sunday Times. It found two bereaved families were left in the dark about investigations into the response of paramedics called to help their loved ones. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 July 2023
  10. News Article
    A former breast cancer surgeon has said the NHS needs a MeToo movement because of sexual harassment in hospitals. Dr Liz O'Riordan said she experienced sexual harassment from colleagues on a weekly to monthly basis in some of her jobs as a junior doctor. In her first week as a junior doctor, she recalled a colleague asking if she "got an erection" after removing an 11-year-old boy's appendix. "We need to be able to say this is not good enough," said Dr O'Riordan. "When you are a trainee in a practical field, you are relying on your boss to let you operate to show you how to cut; it is a craft that you learn." "Basically you are naked in scrubs stood from shoulder, to hip, to knee, next to someone all squeezed in; a lot of body contact; you are relying on them to let you cut, and if you call them out they may say 'I don't like you, you are not coming to theatre today'. "It's very, very, very hard to stand up for yourself and say 'that is not on' and the minute you let them get away with it, it is accepted and they can carry on getting away with it." Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 July 2023 Related reading on the hub: Under the knife: Life Lessons from the operating theatre by Liz O’Riordan Calling out the sexist and misogynist culture within healthcare: a blog by Dr Chelcie Jewitt, co-founder of the Surviving in Scrubs campaign
  11. Content Article
    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.
  12. Content Article
    In this article, Roger Kline looks at the responsibility of Board members in speaking up and responding to concerns raised about patient and staff safety concerns.
  13. News Article
    NHS whistleblowers need stronger legal protection to prevent hospitals using unfair disciplinary procedures to force out doctors who flag problems, the British Medical Association has said. Doctors are being “actively vilified” for speaking out, which has resulted in threats to patient safety, including unnecessary deaths, according to the council chair of the doctors’ union, Phil Banfield. Despite a series of scandals in recent years, it is becoming more common for hospitals to use legal tactics and “phoney investigations” to undermine or force out whistleblowers rather than address their concerns, he warned. Banfield said: “Someone who raises concerns is automatically labelled a troublemaker. We have an NHS that operates in a culture of fear and blame. That has to stop because we should be welcoming concerns, we should be investigating when things are not right. “Whistleblowers are pilloried because some NHS organisations believe the reputational hit is more dangerous than unsafe care,” he added. “Whereas the safety culture in aviation took off after some high-profile airplane crashes in the 70s, the difference is that the aviation industry embraced the need to put things right and understand the systems that led to the disaster – the NHS has not invested in solving the system, it’s been bogged down in blaming the individual instead of the mistake.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 July 2023
  14. Content Article
    Adverse incidents arising from suboptimal healthcare are a major cause of worldwide morbidity and mortality. Arriving at an understanding of the conditions under which adverse incidents occur has the potential to improve the safety of healthcare provision. Staff working in the NHS have been contributing their experiences via a narrative data capture platform – SenseMaker – to help gain contextual insights on a wide range of topics under exploration by the NHS Horizons team. This blog by Rosanna Hunt (Senior Associate, NHS Horizons) in collaboration with Lizzy MacNamara (Junior Research Consultant, The Cynefin Co.) and Taj Nathan (Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Cheshire & the Wirral Partnership Foundation Trust) describes how the SenseMaker® platform could be used to extract staff experiences on the topic of patient safety incidents both reported and unreported by staff, and the facilitated conversations that would be needed to transform the data into actionable insights and commitment to change. 
  15. News Article
    Ambulance staff in the West Midlands have had their ability to speak up as whistleblowers stifled for many years, an independent inquiry has found. The investigation, commissioned by NHS England, also identified failings in financial governance at West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS). Five senior and former members of staff spoke out to NHS England. WMAS accepts it has learning to do, but says the report expresses confidence in the service's ability to address the issues raised. The whistleblowers included a finance director, medical, operations and quality control staff. They raised issues through the Freedom to Speak Up scheme with the National NHS England Team. The inquiry, led by Carole Taylor Brown, had terms of reference which included "Governance, probity, the difficulty of speaking up about these issues and the alleged behaviour of some senior leaders". Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 June 2023
  16. News Article
    A new six-year study, which aims to prevent the ‘silencing’ of patient voices and improve patient trust in the healthcare system, is due to begin thanks to a major funding award Researchers at the University of Nottingham, University of Bristol and University of Birmingham have received a £2.6M Wellcome Discovery Grant for the 'Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare (EPIC)’ project. The study will use philosophical expertise to explore forms of 'silencing'. Patients regularly report that their testimonies and perspectives are ignored, dismissed or explained away by the healthcare profession. These experiences are injustices because they are unfair and harmful - and philosophers call them ‘epistemic injustices’ because they jeopardise patient care and undermine trust in healthcare staff and systems. By studying these epistemic injustices, EPIC will find ways to correct them and improve the relationship between patients and healthcare practitioners. "Patients have long reported feeling ignored, dismissed, or silenced in ways that jeopardise their care and intensify their suffering. The challenge is to understand how this silencing happens and what can be done about it, in ways that can help patients and healthcare practitioners alike. The NHS is right to seek 'patient perspectives' and listen to 'patient voices'. Project EPIC will help them to do that better by fully diagnosing the causes of that silencing." Dr Ian James Kidd, EPIC Co-Investigator & Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy. Read more Source: University of Nottingham
  17. Content Article
    An article from Roger Kline on the failure of many NHS organisations to create a climate where it is safe for staff to speak up. Roger reflects on the recent report published by the National Guardian’s office which summarises the results from the NHS staff survey completed by over 600,000 staff and highlights the story of a senior manager who tried to speak up and the consequences that followed. Further reading: Still not safe to speak up: NHS Staff Survey Results 2022 (Patient Safety Learning blog)
  18. Content Article
    A minor accident makes Emma Walker reflect on the safety culture of the NHS.
  19. Content Article
    The Right Honourable Sir Anthony Hooper was asked by the General Medical Council (GMC) on 5 September 2014 to conduct an independent review of how the GMC engage with individuals who regard themselves as whistleblowers. The terms of reference were: “To conduct a review of how the General Medical Council handles cases involving individuals who regard themselves as whistleblowers and who have appropriately raised concerns in the public interest. These are individuals: whose fitness to practise is being investigated or determined under the General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules 2004; or who have reported such a concern to the GMC.” This is the report by the Right Honourable Sir Anthony Hooper to the GMC presented on the 19th March 2015.
  20. News Article
    A campaigning whistleblowing surgeon who wrote two books about his experiences has decided to leave the medical profession out of fear that he is being “hunted” by the NHS. Peter Duffy, a consultant urologist, is quitting work several years earlier than planned and intends to remove his name from the medical register. After a two year investigation the General Medical Council has decided to take no action against him. But he told The BMJ that he is worried that, after several investigations into his conduct, he remains vulnerable as long as he stays on the register. Duffy, 61, who blew the whistle on patient safety issues at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust’s urology department, left the NHS nearly seven years ago. He claimed he was forced to resign from the trust for his own protection and won a claim for unfair constructive dismissal in 2018, when the trust was ordered to pay him £102 000 in compensation. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 12 June 2023
  21. Content Article
    An NHS consultant who was sacked after whistleblowing says it was because he raised concerns that “normal birth” ideology was putting the lives of women and babies at risk. Martyn Pitman, a respected obstetrician and gynaecologist, became a whistleblower to prevent “avoidable disasters” in NHS maternity care, but it cost him his career. Pitman lost his job last month after more than 20 years as a consultant at Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester. His bosses cited an “irretrievable breakdown in his relationship with management”. His dismissal caused outrage from hundreds of former patients and doctors’ leaders, who say it highlights an NHS culture of “punishing those who dare to speak out”.
  22. News Article
    The number of NHS staff who feel able to raise concerns about clinical safety has fallen for the second year in a row, an analysis of NHS staff survey data has shown. A report by the NHS’s National Guardian’s Office, which represents local “freedom to speak up guardians” who help NHS workers to raise concerns, said that staff were increasingly disillusioned and that they believed that speaking up was “futile,” which had “worrying implications for patient safety.” Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, National Guardian for the NHS said: “It is not acceptable that two in five workers responding to the NHS staff survey do not feel able to speak up about anything which gets in the way of them doing their job. “These survey responses show us that there is a growing feeling that speaking up in the NHS is futile – that nothing changes as a result. When workers speak up about concerns, including the impact of under staffing and a crumbling infrastructure, their leaders themselves may struggle to be heard when trying to address these concerns. “I would add my voice to that of others that this urgently needs to be addressed". Read full story Source: BMJ. 9 June 2023
  23. Content Article
    The NHS Staff Survey is an essential tool for assessing the experiences and opinions of NHS workers in Trusts in England. It also provides valuable insights to help understand the speaking up culture in the NHS. In this report the National Guardian’s Office analyse the results of the 2022 NHS Staff Survey, focusing on questions relating to speaking up.
  24. Content Article
    Background to the independent review by Lewisham and Greenwich into Dr Chris Day's whistleblowing case.
  25. Content Article
    The NHS in England has largely relied on a human resources trilogy of policies, procedures and training to improve organisational culture. Evidence from four interventions using this paradigm—disciplinary action, bullying, whistleblowing and recruitment and career progression—confirms research findings that this approach, in isolation, was never likely to be effective. Roger Kline proposes an alternative methodology, elements of which are beginning to be adopted, which is more likely to be effective and to positively contribute to organisational cultures supporting inclusion, psychological safety, staff well-being, organisational effectiveness and patient care.
×
×
  • Create New...