In the 2020 NHS staff survey, 65.6% of NHS staff said they felt safe to speak up about concerns in their organisation, but in 2021, that number had decreased to 62%.
The importance of promoting a just and fair working culture and making people feel able to speak up about concerns at work without feeling blamed is paramount to staff wellbeing and ultimately, patient safety.
One of our strategic ambitions as part of Advise, resolve and learn Our strategy to 2025 includes “continuing to promote the principles of a just and learning culture as the optimum environment in which resolution and learning can occur” and we are working to deliver this priority in a number ways.
Our Safety and Learning service aids our Claims Management service in supporting members to better understand their claims risk profiles to target their safety activity, while our Practitioner Performance Advice service provides advice, training and insights to share learning across the system. We also promote system-wide, shared learning by developing resources for members and beneficiaries to use at their workplaces.
Launching soon: a new suite of resources
In the coming weeks and months, we will be launching an external campaign, reinforcing a focus on promoting a just and fair learning culture in the NHS. Working alongside other organisations across the health system, the campaign will aim to restate the importance of:
- creating an environment to better support staff when things go wrong and to encourage learning from incidents; and
- taking responsibility for actions in a way that avoids seeking to blame individuals involved when incidents happen.
We are currently finalising details and designing the materials and will share further information on the campaign in future editions of Resolution Matters.
