\n Staff of the trust can approach the ‘Freedom to Speak-Up Guardians’ with any concerns they may have about staff wellbeing and safety, bullying or harassment, patient safety or quality.\n<\/p>\n
\n Jordanne White, Lead Freedom to Speak-Up Guardian. (Image: NCIC)\n<\/p>\n
\n September’s report revealed that 49 new cases were opened during the first quarter of 2026\/27, 16 of which were closed during the same quarter.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was an increase on the 44 new cases seen in the final quarter of 2025\/26.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the meeting heard that fewer concerns about staff behaviour were being escalated to senior executives.\n<\/p>\n
\n Executive medical director Dr Adrian Clements noted that the team had regularly escalated concerns about the behaviour of medical staff to him in recent years.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said this had not happened for some time and wanted to know if this could be taken as anecdotal evidence that behaviours have improved amongst medical staff.\n<\/p>\n
\n Data on speak-ups raised in the NHS trust each quarter. (Image: NCIC)\n<\/p>\n
\n Lead FTSU Guardian Jordanne White said that as far as she knows, “medical staff are behaving better.\n<\/p>\n
\n “We consistently do a training session for our resident doctors, encouraging them to speak up within the appropriate routes because they are fresh eyes in each department.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Dr Clements said that in addition to the work of the FTSU team, professional standards are being advocated to clinicians by leaders.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said it was “encouraging” to hear that this work is having an impact.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mrs White said: “In relation to the hotspots, community care has come-up as one of the hotspots, we are working alongside the appropriate line managers within that collaborative.”\n<\/p>\n
\n She told directors the concerns being raised were within the remit of People Services and saw staff requiring help with Human Resources processes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Chief operating officer Joanne Halliwell asked whether there were particular issues or suggested changes from the community care speak-ups that the executive team could address.\n<\/p>\n
\n Directors were told the issues included reasonable adjustments, recruitment and staff behaviour but no specific changes have been identified by community care staff.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mrs White said she would continue to monitor trends in FTSU data and report them back to the board.\n<\/p>\n
\n The FTSU Guardian role was recommended by Sir Robert Francis KC in 2015.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was the outcome of a review by Sir Robert, exploring how the NHS can foster a culture of open and honest reporting.\n<\/p>\n
\n It aims to reduce barriers for NHS staff who want to raise concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Directors of North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) met at the Cumberland Infirmary on September 23, hearing the latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-790526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}