Luen’s blog: Speaking up, speaking out

Following Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the team gymnastics competition at the Olympics, much has been said about the courage required for people to speak up and speak out. This applies when things are not right, when we don’t feel right, when we are worried about others or worried about ourselves. Simone’s voice, along with that of tennis player Naomi Osaka earlier in the year, will have done much to inspire people to speak up when they need to, or feel they should. But for more people to take this step, we need to create safe spaces in which people can do so.

Here at the hospice, we have done a lot of work to ensure families who use our services can share any concerns with us. We want to ensure our services are and feel safe for people to use, particularly following the pandemic when so many of our families have been isolated for so long and have concerns about the safety of their child. We’re doing everything we can to create an open and welcoming culture, one where families are listened to, directly and via a number of means which allow people to share information anonymously. We keep up-to-date records of concerns, complaints and of course compliments and keep an action log to ensure we learn from these which we share with senior leadership, trustees and the Care Quality Commission. We have a robust incident reporting culture, investigating every incident and learning from them, spotting any potential trends and taking early action to mitigate issues. All around our hospice are notices letting staff, volunteers and families know how to raise a concern and how to get support if they feel they need help to speak up.