Cognitive Institute’s Speaking Up for Safety™ (SUFS) programme was implemented by Calvary Health Care to encourage a culture of safety by empowering staff to support each other and raise concerns. 9000 plus staff (including Visiting Medical Officers) at Calvary hospitals in New South Wales, Australian Central Territory (ACT), Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia took part, with over 70 trained and accredited SUFS presenters.
The Speaking Up for Safety programme helps healthcare organisations overcome entrenched behaviours that can lead to poor patient outcomes. The programme achieves culture change from within, normalising collegiate two-way communication to prevent unintended patient harm. Every member of staff from the most senior clinician to the most junior nurse will develop the skills and insights to respectfully raise issues with colleagues when they are concerned about a patient’s safety.
Cognitive Institute offers a licensed ‘Train the Trainer’ programme to allow accredited in-house presenters to deliver the 1-hour SUFS presentation on an ongoing basis in your organisation. Leading the way by undertaking the 1-hour training session was the Calvary Board, National Executive Leadership team and Calvary’s Regional CEOs. The aim of the training is to teach organisations a common language so that clinicians will be able to support each other by effectively communicating concern to colleagues that unintended harm to patients may be about to occur. Following this, a hospital-wide programme in the ACT was launched.
Though the training was initially paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Calvary cited its continued commitment to quality as well as patient safety as a top priority for making sure the training resumed in 2021 throughout its multiple sites, including New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia.
Kris Salisbury, National Director Clinical Governance at Calvary added: “COVID-19 has very much impacted the development of strong embedding approaches, however, as we start to move to a way of working and living with COVID-19, the time to really strengthen the message and really embed and sustain any culture change will be in 2023.
“We had a pre-existing relationship with Cognitive Institute and felt that their other programmes were in alignment with where our organisation was headed. They had a tried-and-tested product that we could apply across our hospitals. Working with the programme is helping to strengthen the safety culture across our hospitals. More of our people are talking about the importance of speaking up and using the term “speaking up” when raising a concern, so that patient harm is being prevented when they do.”
To find out more about placing safety culture at the centre of your organisation, contact Client Manager, Shannon Harbinson: via .
