Freedom to Speak Up GuardianNHS

Job summary

Are you passionate about creating a workplace where colleagues feel safe, supported, and empowered to raise concerns? Join Elysium Healthcare as a part-time Freedom to Speak Up Guardian to lead, promote, and embed a positive speaking up culture across Elysium Healthcare. This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in ensuring colleagues have access to an independent, impartial, and confidential source of support when raising concerns. Working across the organisation, you will help strengthen our culture of openness, transparency, learning, and continuous improvement, ensuring that concerns are listened to, addressed appropriately, and used to support positive change. As Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, you will act as an independent point of contact for colleagues who wish to raise concerns relating to patient safety, quality of care, staff wellbeing, and workplace experience. You will provide confidential guidance, support, and signposting, while maintaining clear boundaries around the role by not conducting or managing investigations.

Main duties of the job

The Freedom to Speak Up Guardian role at Elysium Healthcare offers an opportunity to champion a culture where staff feel empowered to voice concerns. The position involves providing independent, impartial support to staff regarding issues like patient safety and workplace experience. As a vital contact, the guardian guides and directs concerns appropriately while maintaining confidentiality and supporting the redirection of issues beyond the Freedom to Speak Up process to respective teams. Key responsibilities include record maintenance, regular staff engagement to build speaking up confidence, and involvement in policy development. The role is crucial for fostering relationships across operational and governance teams to manage concerns effectively.

Job description

Are you passionate about creating a workplace where colleagues feel safe, supported, and empowered to raise concerns? Join Elysium Healthcare as a part-time Freedom to Speak Up Guardian to lead, promote, and embed a positive speaking up culture across Elysium Healthcare.

This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in ensuring colleagues have access to an independent, impartial, and confidential source of support when raising concerns. Working across the organisation, you will help strengthen our culture of openness, transparency, learning, and continuous improvement, ensuring that concerns are listened to, addressed appropriately, and used to support positive change.

As Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, you will act as an independent point of contact for colleagues who wish to raise concerns relating to patient safety, quality of care, staff wellbeing, and workplace experience. You will provide confidential guidance, support, and signposting, while maintaining clear boundaries around the role by not conducting or managing investigations. You will ensure colleagues receive appropriate advice on the most suitable route for their concern, including supporting redirection to other internal teams where matters fall outside the Freedom to Speak Up process.

You will be responsible for maintaining confidential records, monitoring concerns through to resolution, and ensuring issues are escalated appropriately and proportionately where required. Regular engagement with colleagues across our services will be essential, helping to build trust, visibility, and confidence in speaking up processes while identifying local themes, barriers, and opportunities for improvement.

A key aspect of the role will involve identifying and escalating concerns that present immediate risks to service user safety, staff wellbeing, safeguarding, regulatory compliance, or organisational integrity. You will build strong working relationships across operational, clinical, People, quality, governance, safeguarding, compliance, legal, communications, and regulatory teams to ensure concerns are managed effectively and learning is embedded across services.

You will also lead the development and ongoing support of the Freedom to Speak Up Champion network, ensuring Champions are equipped to promote speaking up locally and provide visible support to colleagues. Alongside this, you will drive communication and engagement initiatives, increase awareness of Freedom to Speak Up processes, contribute to policy development, and ensure Elysium Healthcare continues to align with national best practice and professional standards.

This is a permanent position, working 30 hours per week.    Where you'll be working: Hybrid role - with a mix of home, office and site working. Key responsibilities:

• Act as an independent, impartial and objective point of contact for colleagues who wish to speak up.
• Provide confidential guidance, support, signposting and assurance following concerns raised.
• Promote a culture where colleagues feel safe, heard and confident to raise concerns.
• Provide guidance and support to individuals whose concerns should be redirected to other teams, such as the People team, where they do not meet the criteria for the FTSU process.
• Ensure concerns raised through the Freedom to Speak Up route are recorded, reviewed, escalated and followed up appropriately.
• Review and analyse speaking up data, themes, trends, outcomes, barriers and evidence of detriment or repeat concerns.
• Build collaborative relationships across operational, clinical, People, safeguarding, governance and regulatory teams.
• Share organisational themes with the Executive team and relevant senior leaders to support learning and continuous improvement.
• Maintain and develop the Freedom to Speak Up Champion network.
• Lead communication and engagement activity to raise awareness of Freedom to Speak Up routes.
• Support the review and improvement of relevant policies, procedures, guidance, training and communication materials.
• Engage with external guidance, best practice and wider Freedom to Speak Up networks.
• Attend sites regularly to build visibility, trust and confidence in the role.

To be successful in this role:

Knowledge & Skills

• Strong understanding of Freedom to Speak Up principles, whistleblowing, confidentiality, safeguarding, and psychological safety.
• Excellent communication, listening, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to support colleagues sensitively and professionally.
• Ability to analyse and interpret data, identifying trends, risks, and opportunities for improvement.
• Strong judgement, integrity, and resilience, with the confidence to challenge constructively and escalate concerns where appropriate.
• Ability to influence and engage stakeholders at all levels, including senior leaders.
• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and maintain accurate records.
• Able to work independently while building effective relationships across clinical, operational, and corporate teams.

Experience

• Experience in a Freedom to Speak Up, whistleblowing, patient safety, governance, organisational culture, staff experience, or similar assurance role, ideally within healthcare.
• Proven experience of managing sensitive and confidential concerns with impartiality and professionalism.
• Experience of working with senior leaders and governance forums to provide insight, assurance, and recommendations.
• Experience of engaging with colleagues across multiple sites within a large or complex organisation.
• Experience of preparing reports and presenting findings to senior stakeholders.

What You’ll Get

At Elysium Healthcare, we believe in taking care of the people who care for others, you’ll enjoy a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your wellbeing, growth, and future:

• Annual competitive pro rata salary
• The equivalent of 33 days annual leave (including bank holidays) – plus your birthday off and the option to buy additional annual leave, in our annual selection window.
• Career development and training to help you achieve your professional goals
• Access to our Rewards & Benefits platform Ely-Vate; Your one-stop destination for everyday savings, exclusive benefits, and wellbeing hub!
• Wellbeing support and activities to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance
• Access to Blue Light Card, which provides a range of exclusive offers and discounts
• Life Assurance, for added peace of mind
• Stream – instant access to earned wages when you need it, plus access to save, directly from your wages, alongside financial wellbeing support.
• 24/7 GP service and second medical opinion, to ensure you are the best you can be
• Enhanced Maternity Package, so you can truly enjoy this special time
• Pension contribution, to help secure your future

About us:

Elysium Health care has over 8,000 employees and a unique approach to the delivery of care. With a network of over 80 services across England and Wales covering Mental Health, Neurological, Learning Disabilities & Autism, Children & Education, there is opportunity for you to grow and move.

Elysium Healthcare is part of Ramsay Health Care with a global network that extends across 10 countries and employs over 86,000 people globally.

Elysium Healthcare follows safer recruitment of staff for all appointments and is a Disability Confident employer, committed to inclusive and accessible recruitment. It is a requirement that all staff understand it is each person’s individual responsibility to promote and safeguard the welfare of service users. All candidates will be subject to a DBS disclosure

About us

Elysium Healthcare, part of Ramsay Health Care, is an expansive organisation with over 8,000 employees in more than 80 locations across England and Wales, focusing on mental health, neurological, learning disabilities, autism, children, and education services. As a provider of diverse healthcare services, Elysium Healthcare emphasizes a culture of transparency, continuous improvement, and openness. Valuing its staff, the organisation offers robust benefits, including training opportunities, wellbeing support, competitive salaries, and a comprehensive benefits package to promote a healthy work-life balance. Elysium Healthcare is committed to an inclusive recruitment process and safeguarding service user welfare.