Freedom To Speak Up Guardian

Are you passionate about encouraging and advocating colleagues to speak up?

To be a guardian requires strong partnership working at all levels within the organisation to identify appropriate contacts and escalation routes as sources of support for anything that might be spoken up about.

The Freedom to Speak Up Guardian (FTSUG) will act as the expert and professional resource for trust colleagues on all aspects of practice relating to the Freedom to Speak Up agenda and associated cultural change in line with our Trust Values; to encourage embedding of best practice in enabling and supporting trust staff to raise concerns where they see evidence of risk, wrongdoing and unsafe practice.

The FTSU Guardian role is designed to lead on the development of a range of initiatives, to achieve the following:

• A culture of speaking up is instilled throughout the organisation and wider NHS
• Speaking up processes are effective and continuously improved
• All staff have the capability to speak up effectively and managers have the capability to support those who are speaking up
• All staff are supported appropriately when they speak up or support other people who are speaking up
• The Board is fully sighted on, and engaged in, Freedom to Speak Up matters and issues
• Safety and quality are assured.

The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT) is the main provider of Mental Health and Learning Disability services in Leeds. We also provide specialist inpatient services in York and some highly specialised services across the country. As a teaching trust with strong links to local universities, we are a centre of excellence for teaching, research and development.

There are many benefits of working for LYPFT including fantastic employee wellbeing support, 27 - 33 days annual leave, flexible working and remote working arrangements, the NHS Pension Scheme (LYPFT pays 20.6% into your scheme each year), coaching, support and opportunities for career development and training and education support alongside a range of exclusive discounts and payment schemes including for cars, extra leave days and more organisations such as Blue Light Card, Health Service Discounts and NHS Discount Offers.

We also have an incredible bank department, offering variety of roles in nursing, allied health professions, healthcare support worker and administration clerical. Permanent employees are automatically added to bank. Bank-only workers can choose the hours they want to work and will have the opportunity to gain additional experience, keep skills up to date, develop new ones and earn extra money without having to commit to a permanent role. For an informal discussion or more information please contact the teambankstaffingdepartment.lypft@nhs.net

• The post holder will be given autonomy to interpret national whistleblowing guidelines and make the necessary challenges, highlighting areas of concern and supporting staff to speak out
• Alongside the Chief Executive, lead the profile for raising concerns with the Trust
• To act in a genuinely independent capacity to support and help drive the trust towards becoming a more open and supportive place to work
• To help drive culture change from the top of the organization
• Work with HR professionals and others to ensure that speaking up guidance and processes are clear and accessible, reflect best practice, and address any local issues that may hinder the speaking up process.
• Lead on the ongoing review and development of Freedom to Speak Up processes implementing effective evaluation and feedback loops to ensure the effective handling of individual cases, intervening when these are failing people who speak up, and making recommendations for improvement.
• Ensure that all staff have the relevant skills and knowledge to enable them to speak up effectively, and those supporting, managing or investigating speaking up issues have the capability and knowledge to do this effectively
• Take immediate appropriate action when matters that people are speaking up about, indicate that safety and quality may be compromised
• To work across the trust to make it a safer place for service users/patients and a more open place to work