Over a quarter of staff at Southmead Hospital’s health trust do not feel comfortable raising concerns about “unsafe clinical practice”, a report has revealed. Less than two-thirds of North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) employees feel “safe” to speak up about anything while only half are confident that the organisation would do something about it.
NBT board members called the findings “very concerning” and pledged to step up the trust’s Freedom To Speak Up (FTSU) initiative, which encourages workers to flag issues and bosses to listen and take action. A report to the board said more concerns were being lodged as the scheme was gathering momentum, most about employee safety, including staffing levels, followed by “bullying and harassment”.
“Taken together this indicates that the vast number of concerns relate to behaviours and relationships,” it said. “Some concerns have recorded the knock-on effect to patient safety of issues of worker safety/bullying and harassment.”
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Non-executive board member Ike Anya told the meeting: “I was glad to see the progress being made but I couldn’t help looking again and again at the 74 per cent who would feel secure raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice, which means 26 per cent – one quarter – of our staff do not feel secure in raising concerns. That is very concerning. What that says is that they do not feel comfortable, even without witnessing something.”
NBT chairwoman Michele Romaine said: “Nobody around this table believes that is acceptable and it’s absolutely why Freedom To Speak Up and many other initiatives in the organisation absolutely have full support because you're right, we need to live in a world where 100 per cent of people need to say what’s concerning them. We are in the process, we are not there yet.
“Why as an organisation would we not want to be a place where people felt safe to say what they needed to say to us? It’s a no-brainer, so this is all part of our journey towards being that organisation.
“I like the fact that more people are coming forward. It means they feel more confident.” Only 64 per cent of staff said they felt “safe to speak up about anything that concerns me in this organisation”, the board was told.
Lead FTSU guardian Hilary Sawyer said: “Concerns have been raised across all divisions in increasing numbers and we believe this reflects more awareness and trust in the Freedom To Speak Up mechanism. Concerns have been regarding a range of issues. However, levels have been highest relating to behaviours and relationships and some knock-on to some patient concerns as well.
“Themes of concerns correlate to themes raised by our trade union colleagues. These are around staffing levels and concerns of patient care and staff wellbeing, behavioural issues and relationships with colleagues or managers, fairness and treatment, parking issues relating to retention and staff safety, and some employment issues.
“Staff continue to reflect some fatigue from ongoing pressures from increased activity and staffing level challenges. We need to continue to create the right conditions to enable and invite confident, curious and open dialogue, inclusion and contribution.
“The staff survey suggests we have some way to go in staff feeling safe to speak up about anything of concern and have that followed up,” she told the meeting on Thursday, May 26.
