The Royal United Hospitals (RUH) Bath NHS Foundation Trust serves over 500,000 individuals across Bath and Northeast Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire. With over 6,500 staff, the Trust is a significant regional employer and healthcare provider.
The RUH is recognised as one of the top 20 NHS hospitals to work for nationally, and their commitment to enhancing staff well-being and patient care underpins their strategic initiatives, recognising that a culture of safety and inclusion directly impacts patient care.
Signing the Sexual Safety Charter
As a signatory of the Sexual Safety Charter, RUH demonstrates its commitment to upholding the highest standards of safety and respect in the workplace, underscoring the Trust’s dedication to:
- addressing and preventing sexual harassment and misconduct.
- fostering a culture of mutual respect.
- ensuring that all staff members feel empowered to report incidents without fear of stigma or retaliation.
The principles of the charter align closely with the Trust’s broader goals of promoting inclusivity and protecting staff well-being with its ongoing Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) objectives.
The RUH’s EDI objectives to advance equity
The RUH’s EDI objectives provide a focused framework for advancing equity across the organisation. These include:
- Creating safe, inclusive, and diverse teams and environments where staff feel they belong, are valued, and can thrive.
- Promoting and embedding diversity at all organisational levels, advocating its benefits both internally and within the wider community.
- Reducing occurrences of discrimination, prejudice, harassment, and abuse based on individual differences across all teams, structures, and systems.
As part of this framework, the Trust has actively:
- Strengthened and re-launched its staff networks, ensuring these groups can lead initiatives and act as safe spaces for their members.
- Implemented the Routes to Success program, promoting equitable career progression for staff from the Global Majority, with 20 participants completing the first cohort.
- Launched its first Race Equity: Anti-Racism Statement, providing toolkits and allyship guidance to foster meaningful conversations and actions.
These objectives and strategies position the Trust as a proactive force for positive change, ensuring its workforce and patients alike benefit from a culture of respect and support.
Working with Freedom to Speak Up Guardians
The Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) Guardian role was introduced in the NHS in 2016 following recommendations from the Sir Robert Francis QC’s Freedom to Speak Up Inquiry. This role is central to promoting a culture of openness and safety across NHS organisations, empowering staff to raise concerns about unsafe practices, bullying, harassment, discrimination, and more.
FTSU Guardian’s Role and Function
Freedom to Speak Up Guardians provide independent, confidential (note, not anonymous) support to staff who wish to report concerns. They ensure these concerns are addressed and communicated to senior leadership teams while safeguarding the identity of the individuals’ raising issues when requested.
Their efforts aim to:
- Foster a culture where speaking up is normalised.
- Build trust among staff that concerns will be heard and acted upon.
- Reduce barriers such as fear of retaliation or inaction.
At Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian and Speak Up Champions across the Trust play a pivotal role in supporting initiatives like the Report + Support™.
The Trust has one Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, while the Speak Up Champions help to develop a speaking-up culture at team level and act as conduits between team leaders and the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.
Their presence ensures staff have multiple channels to raise concerns. By working closely with leadership and leveraging tools like Report + Support™, they address issues at their roots and contribute to organisational learning.
Launching Report + Support
Although the RUH is rated as one of the best hospitals to work for in the whole of England by their own staff, their own EDI initiatives combined with the NHS Staff Survey highlighted further areas for improvement, including staff experiencing harassment, bullying, or abuse.
The survey revealed that while reporting rates had improved, significant gaps remained, with only 48% of staff reporting incidents of harassment or abuse, highlighting the need to provide a transparent, accessible, and effective mechanism for addressing unacceptable behaviours.
These findings prompted the Trust to implement Report + Support™, ensuring an accessible, anonymous reporting mechanism was available, and a commitment to launching targeted interventions to address systemic issues.
Report + Support™ is an all-in-one online reporting platform that enables staff to report incidents of abuse, discrimination, and violence anonymously or with their name, ensuring their voices are heard without fear of reprisal.
The launch of Report + Support™ is a testament to RUH’s dedication to its people-first ethos, addressing current challenges but also positioning them as leaders in staff wellbeing, equality and patient care innovation.
