Mid Cheshire Hospitals encourages and supports staff who raise genuine concerns. If something at work is troubling you, please tell us. We are committed to dealing with all concerns raised openly, responsibly and professionally.
All NHS trusts are required to have a named freedom to speak up guardian. The guardian role works alongside the Trust leadership teams to support open and transparent working where all staff are actively encouraged and enabled to speak up safely.
The guardian role is there to support staff to speak up but also to proactively improve the culture of the Trust to focus on learning and improvement. Whether it is the potential for things to go wrong or in response to an incident, it is important that all staff feel able to speak up so that potential harm is prevented. Even when things are good, but could be even better, we should feel able to say something and should expect that our suggestion is listened to and used as an opportunity for improvement. Speaking up is about all of these things.
You can speak up about anything that gets in the way of safe and high-quality care. You can also speak up about anything that affects your experience in the workplace.
Speaking up may include:
- a quick discussion with a line manager
- a suggestion for improvement
- raising an issue with the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian
- bringing a matter to the attention of a regulator
Some people may interpret any of these actions as ‘whistleblowing’.
Others may only see ‘whistleblowing’ as:
- something that is ‘formal’
- a matter that involves an outside an organisation
- something that may qualify for ‘protection’ under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
Speaking up is all these things.
Healthcare professionals
- Staff
- Volunteers
- Students
- Bank and agency staff
- Former employees
If you are a patient, carer or family of a patient
Please contact our Patient Advice and Complaints Team.
Concerns can be raised with:
• your manager
• your trade union representative
• an Employee Support Advisor
• our Freedom to Speak Up Guardian,
Sian Axon - speakup@mcht.nhs.uk
• the Trust incident reporting system.
