UNISON is about to roll out a Be Safe training programme aimed at encouraging staff to raise concerns about patient care in the National Health Service.
The initiative comes at a time when the government has pledged to make the NHS more accountable and open, following the 290 recommendations in last year’s Francis report on the maltreatment of patients at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
“We want to go out and talk to health workers and actively encourage them to raise their concerns – to make it more simple,” says UNISON head of nursing Gail Adams.
“We want to normalise the process of raising concerns, to change the culture of the service so that the exception is not raising concerns. We also want to engage patients and service users in the process.”
