Nottingham CityCare have six new Freedom to Speak Up Champions to help promote patient safety and delivery of high-quality care.
Freedom to Speak Up aims to give staff throughout the NHS the confidence to raise concerns about aspects of their working lives that are preventing them from fulfilling their full roles or hindering the provision of safe effective care. Each organisation has its own Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.
Carolin Tomlinson, CityCare's Freedom to Speak Up Guardian is now supported by 14 trained champions working across the organisation to offer access to impartial and confidential advice and support.
Carolin said “We know that giving colleagues the confidence and opportunities to speak up about concerns, as illustrated by our growing team of Freedom to Speak Up champions, plays a key role in staff wellbeing, patient safety and maintaining high quality care.
“Everyone should feel able to be transparent and our role as a Freedom to Speak Up team at CityCare is to encourage honest feedback as we strive for continual improvement and greater insight into how we might do things differently to develop a more effective workforce delivering even better care.”
Freedom to Speak Up was developed in 2015 following an inquiry into the care provided at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust which identified that staff were aware the quality of care was not as it should be but had not felt able to raise concerns.
The inquiry recommended NHS trusts and organisations delivering NHS services adopt Freedom to Speak Up to enable staff to be open and transparent about what was happening across their organisations.
Our new Freedom to Speak Up Champions are:
- Erica Pearce, Project support officer: Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion/Reducing Inequalities
- Kelly Catchpole, Pharmacy Technician
- Orla Elston, Diabetes Specialist Nurse
- Kath Browning, Family Nurse
- Rob Oakley, Project support officer: Children’s
- Mike Beak, Transformation Manager
The Freedom to Speak Up Guardians will be visiting teams around CityCare to introduce themselves over the coming weeks and months.
The six new champions are joining the existing team of champions: Jo Williams, Safeguarding Service Manager; David Brocklebank, Patient and Public Experience Lead; Katy Swanwick, Head of Clinical Services in Children and Families; Victoria Chow. Clinical Services Team Manager; Alison Osbourne, Health Visitor; Lauren Breeson, Clinical Trainer, Donna Sherratt, Small Steps Big Changes Progamme Manager; and Caroline Wragg, Family Nurse Partnership Supervisor.
Date published: 28 March 2024
