Freedom to Speak Up

The most effective way to raise your concern is to bring it to the attention of your Line Manager, or the person responsible for the area you are concerned about.  They will want to know what the concern is, and will ask for any information you can share that will help them decide how best to address it. 

If you are unsure where to raise your concern or need to escalate it further, please check our Raising Concerns guide. 

If the risk to patient safety is imminent, time is of the essence and in these circumstances, please say ‘STOP’ so that the team can immediately take time-out and review what was about to happen, before it happens.

If you are unable to raise your concern with your manager, or the person responsible for the area you can also contact the Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) Guardian on lorraine.heaton@liverpoolft.nhs.uk, call 07794 071021 or contact a Freedom to Speak up champion.

If you have been unable to raise your concern through the Trust’s process, you can report externally. This should be a last resort if all else fails, as raising a concern internally is fastest and allows the Trust to follow robust procedures to investigate, resolve and report back.

If someone has raised a concern to you, it is important to start by acknowledging that they may feel anxious about raising concerns and thank them for doing so.

You should listen to understand the perspective of the concern raiser, without imposing your own beliefs of the situation. This is important and supports an objective response and action plan to be made.

Set realistic goals to give you the space you need to take the right next steps, and keep the concern raiser informed as to when they can next expect to receive an update or feedback.  Make sure to report back if that goal can’t be met in the initial time given.  This will help you both to feel informed and aware that actions are still being progressed

If someone has raised a concern with you or you have been supporting an investigation, remember to report back on the outcomes. Feedback is a powerful tool that encourages a healthy raising concerns culture to thrive and supports continuing patient and staff safety.

Showing that their courage created a positive outcome, will help the concern raiser to feel confident in the future and encourage others to feel safe speaking up about their own concerns.

Even if an investigation reached other conclusions, it is important to provide feedback to ensure staff do not feel discouraged from speaking up in future, by helping them understand and be assured of robust investigation processes.

If a concern raised resulted in recommendations for improvement, it’s important that there is planned follow up to provide assurance that the recommendations are fulfilled, and that change and learning is embedded and shared.

Whether you are the concern raiser, or the person trying to resolve the issue and have concerns about progressing through the steps above, then please consider seeking help from the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.