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GO Online: Inspection toolkit

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Freedom to speak up

Well-led will look at the support you put in place to create a culture where people are empowered to speak up. This will apply as much to your staff team as the people you support.

The following film provides a summary of this area of inspection. It can help you and your teams learn about what will be inspected and what is important to demonstrate to deliver good or outstanding care.

Introducing Freedom to speak up

Duration 01 min 59 sec

Well-led will look at the support you put in place to create a culture where people are empowered to speak up. This applies as much to your staff team as it does to the people you support.

There is crossover here with other elements of CQC inspection looking at the culture of the service, how you listen to and involve people in their care, and how you encourage people to express their views and raise concerns.

What the CQC is hoping for, is that you can evidence though is how you create a positive culture where people feel fully empowered to speak out, knowing that they are supported to do so and that their voice will be heard.

The CQC inspection focus is likely to look for practical examples of how you have supported individuals to raise issues and concerns, both within your service and potentially to other audiences in the wider community.

Inspectors may also look at how you respond to issues that have been raised by people speaking up, and learned from them. Again, there is crossover with elements of Safe and Responsive inspection focus, but the Well-led focus will look more at the effective systems and support you are expected in place.

The CQC may also want to know how you use ‘Freedom to speak up guardians’ or similar support to help empower others to voice their concerns.

CQC interviews will focus on people and staff teams primarily, but may also involve managers and external individuals and groups such as guardians, advocates etc.

A review of documented evidence might look at your investigations, staff support and supervision records, complaints, and more.

To learn more about how you can meet this area of CQC inspection, take a look at GO Online.

Watch the film here: https://vimeo.com/790356891

Resources

The practical resources below can help you to strengthen this area of CQC inspection. Use the filter to choose different types of resources or select based on related prompt.

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1 resource(s) found

Making Speaking Up Business As Usual

Resource creator: The National Guardian’s Office

The National Guardian’s Office leads, trains and supports a network of Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in England and provides support and challenge to the healthcare system in England on speaking up.

It is about speaking up about anything that gets in the way of doing a great job.

Freedom to Speak Up Guardians support workers to speak up when they feel that they are unable to in other ways.

There are over 800 Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in the NHS and independent sector organisations, national bodies and elsewhere.

  • Website

Date published: April 2022



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