Independent Freedom to Speak Up Guardians Service for Norfolk and Suffolk ICB & Primary Care

Our team of independent registered Freedom to Speak Up Guardians are here to listen to your concerns, issues or suggestions and offer confidential & impartial support.

What do we Mean by Speaking Up?

• Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) is about encouraging a positive culture where people feel they can speak up and their voices will be heard, and their suggestions acted upon.
• Speaking up is about anything that gets in the way of providing good care.
• FTSU is for all ICB & Primary Care workers and this encompasses any healthcare professionals, non-clinical workers, administrative workers, directors, managers, contractors, volunteers, students, trainees, locum, bank and agency workers and former workers.
• When things go wrong, it is important to learn lessons and make improvements. If you think something might go wrong, you must feel able to speak up to prevent potential harm. Even when things are good but could be better, you should feel able to say something.
• You can speak up about anything that gets in the way of patient care or affects your working life. This could be something which doesn’t feel right to you, for example, a way of working or a process that isn’t being followed, you feel you are being discriminated against, or you feel the behaviours of others are affecting your wellbeing or that of your colleagues or patients.
• Speaking up, therefore, captures a range of issues, some of which may be appropriate for other existing processes, for example, HR or patient safety or quality.

Freedom to Speak Up Guardians will:

• Listen to each voice in confidence & without judgement
• Advocate for those raising concerns
• Offer support & help you to escalate matters raised
• Offer to escalate a matter in confidence if you prefer
• Support staff in deciding upon their choice of resolution
• Have access to senior managers/partners across the ICB & primary care practices in order to help resolve concerns rapidly where possible
• Hold meetings with you in person, virtually or by telephone
• Ensure that barriers to speaking up are addressed
• Support a positive culture of speaking up
• Ensure that lessons are learnt & things are improved when staff do speak up

Freedom to Speak Up Guardians cannot:

• Provide legal advice
• Provide counselling or mediation
• Tell you what to do in pursuing your concerns – but we can offer advice
• Undertake investigations on your behalf
• Advocate for you where you are already involved in a formal process within your organisation
• Solve relationship problems in teams or between members of staff
• Deal with concerns raised by service users or other members of the public