Freedom to Speak Up Guardian
Speaking Up is welcomed at Leeds Community Healthcare. It supports the trust to provide the best care for patients and communities, address health inequalities and create the best culture for all our staff.
Speaking up about any concern you have at work will help us to keep improving our services for all patients and the working environment for our staff. Raising concerns can be difficult. In accordance with our behaviours and Duty of Candour, our senior leaders and entire board are committed to an open and honest culture. We will look into what you say and offer support. Provided you are acting honestly, it does not matter if you are mistaken or if there is an innocent explanation for your concerns. Staff should suffer no detriment for raising a genuine concern.
You can raise a concern about risk, malpractice, poor experiences, or wrongdoing you think is harming the service we deliver.
The trust is committed to a culture of transparency and fair treatment of all. It will challenge strongly any harassment or victimisation of anyone raising a concern. We will not tolerate any attempt to bully employees into not raising any such concern. Such behaviour is a breach of our values as a Trust and our behavioural standards and, if upheld following investigation, could result in disciplinary action.
When you raise a concern, it will be shared with the Chief Executive, relevant directors and senior leaders in the service concerned and a plan of response and if need be, investigation will occur. The person who spoke up will be kept informed as this happens. If an investigation is needed timelines will be established for an orderly and responsive process. Where an investigation is needed, this will be objective and conducted by someone who is suitably independent (this might be someone outside the organisation or from a different part of the organisation) and trained in investigations. Feedback to the staff member and from the staff member is a key part of this process. We will thank the staff member or members who speak up. As an organisation we will learn and share learning across the trust.
The most important aspect of your speaking up is the information you can provide, not your identity.
Anyone who works (or has worked in the last three years) for the trust can use the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian service. This includes bank, locum or agency workers, temporary workers, students, honorary contract holders, independent contractors, volunteers and trainees.
Read the full Speaking Up / Raising Concerns Policy for more information.
The Freedom To Speak Up Guardian service can be contacted at lcht.lch.freedomtospeakup@nhs.net
