There is no freedom to speak up if no one is listening

Kar has done a fantastic job of identifying barriers stopping leaders from speaking up.1The emphasis on individuals speaking up rather than organisations listening is what we are getting wrong in the NHS.Since Robert Francis’s 2015 report Freedom to Speak Up,2 the situation has remained the same, with regular organisational safety failures, routine personal and professional detriment to whistleblowers, and a lack of listening to patients and staff.34Whistleblowing usually is, and should be, the last resort. Concerns have usually been raised to multiple people at multiple levels of the hierarchy. As Leary says, “A workforce that must resort to whistleblowing is a symptom of a poor safety culture.”5It is easier to encourage, or even require,6 individuals to speak up than to deliver the complex cultural work required to transform comfort seeking organisations into listening, problem sensing, learning organisations.7 We know, based on study of human factors and hierarchy of intervention effectiveness,…
Read Original Article: There is no freedom to speak up if no one is listening »