Speak Up – Sue Ryder’s online reporting tool

In our vision, we pledge to make Sue Ryder a great place to work and volunteer, where everyone can thrive, develop and feel valued. Ensuring that Sue Ryder is a safe, inclusive and welcoming place for everyone is an important part of this pledge.

This is why we are introducing a new way to report concerns, via an online platform available to all staff and volunteers, called Speak Up. Alongside our annual Volunteer Voice survey and online suggestions box, this will help us improve the volunteering experience.

Speak Up can be used by all Sue Ryder staff and volunteers.

Ideally, concerns or complaints should be raised with line managers or the Volunteer Helpline.

However, we know this isn’t always possible. Speak Up gives colleagues an alternative way to report concerns that haven’t been resolved following these conversations, or if you don’t feel comfortable sharing them with anyone else.

Below is a list of the categories which you can use on Speak Up to make a report, including examples of what these topics include:

• Bullying or harassment: persistent behaviour targeted towards you, or another person, that is offensive, intimidating, insulting or a misuse of power. This may take the form of microaggressions, discrimination or sexual harassment.
• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I): reports of discrimination or unfair treatment based on race, religion or belief, gender reassignment, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, age, pregnancy / maternity.
• Finance matters: issues relating to the incorrect use of money or valuables at Sue Ryder. This could include theft, fraud, bribery and corruption.
• Health, safety and estates: please note that serious incidents, such as fires, death/serious injury, pandemic, terrorism or extremism concerns should be reported to a relevant member of the Senior Leadership Team, who will escalate this further if necessary.
• Legal: data protection issues or other legal concerns.
• Leadership: concerns about the local or national leadership of the charity.
• Operations (Healthcare): complaints or concerns about the running of our healthcare services.
• Operations (Retail): complaints or concerns relating to the running of our retail operations.
• Operations (Fundraising): complaints or concerns about the running of our local or national fundraising activities.
• Patient safety / clinical governance: concerns about the safety of patients being cared for by Sue Ryder or the safety of Sue Ryder clinical processes.
• Professional conduct: issues about the behaviour of a colleague while at work. This could include whistleblowing, which is reporting a wrongdoing at work that may impact others. For example: dishonest/unlawful acts, policy breaches, suspected abuse or neglect of service users, environmental dangers, misuse of authority or covering up of significant errors.
• Strategy: concerns relating to the implementation of Sue Ryder’s strategic priorities.
• Treatment of the public: reports about the behaviour of Sue Ryder staff or volunteers towards members of the public.
• Volunteering: Sue Ryder volunteers can report concerns about their experience volunteering using Speak Up. Concerns can also be raised by volunteers under any of the above categories where relevant. Reports relating to the services offered by our volunteers can also be raised under this category.

Speak Up is a conversation-based platform, where colleagues can reply to each other in writing. Please note that there is no option to chat over the phone or video call in Speak Up.

The following issues should not be reported via Speak Up:

• Serious incidents, such as fires, death/serious injury, pandemic, terrorism or extremism concerns should be reported to a relevant member of the Senior Leadership Team, who will escalate this further if necessary.
• Safeguarding issues, where a vulnerable person under the age of 18, or a vulnerable adult, is at risk of abuse or harm. Volunteers must report safeguarding concerns immediately to their line manager, or by emailing volunteering@sueryder.org
• IT issues: problems with IT equipment or technology should be sent to the IT service desk. This should be done via your line manager.

Volunteers can access Speak Up by creating an account with their personal email address and entering the Sue Ryder code SR123.

Create a Speak Up account and log in

Having an account allows you to log back in and review the latest replies to your report. However, Sue Ryder cannot see your identity unless you share this during the conversation on Speak Up.

After setting up your account, you can simply login with your details.

On the Work in Confidence website, you can find instructions on how to start a conversation on Speak Up.

There is also a video demonstration showing how to submit a report.

Speak Up is provided by Work in Confidence, an independent organisation who oversee our anonymous staff and volunteer surveys (Let’s Talk and Volunteer Voice).

Watch Work in Confidence's video on how your data is kept secure when using Speak Up

Please note that when they call the platform “Work in Confidence”, this is what Sue Ryder calls Speak Up.

The Speak Up team is made up of colleagues from across Sue Ryder who are experts in the topic area they can respond to on the platform. Many of our conversation responders are colleagues from the Senior Leadership Team.

Colleagues who respond to messages using Speak Up have received training from Work in Confidence on how to use the platform and best practice for supporting and responding to colleagues who report concerns.

The team has committed to responding to all reports on Speak Up within seven days.

If the colleague who receives your report is away on annual leave, you will get a message to let you know from system administrators. You will then have the option to share your report with a different colleague who can help, or to wait until the colleague who is away returns to work.

When you create an account with Speak Up, the system will store your email address. This allows you to log back into the system to check on the status of any ongoing conversations.

The person replying to you via Speak Up cannot see your email address, meaning that your identity is kept private.

You may be asked to share your department when you submit a report on Speak Up. This information can only be seen by the two colleagues who are administrators on the system, in data reports which show the number of reports per department. The administrators will not be able to see the contents of any reports on Speak Up.

If you have created an anonymous report on Speak Up, during your conversation on the platform, the person replying to your report may ask you to share your name. It is up to you whether you wish to share this information or not.

The reason that you will be asked for this is to help the colleague support you and achieve a resolution, as this may not be possible if you choose not to share your identity.

When you start a conversation on Speak Up, this information is sent to the Sue Ryder colleague you select at the time of reporting. Only this colleague can see your report. If this information needs to be shared with other colleagues to help resolve this, the person who received your report will ask for your permission through Speak Up before doing so.

Depending on which category you select for your report, there may be different colleagues who can support you.

Within seven days, this colleague will reply to you and try to support you in resolving your concerns. The type of issue reported will influence the actions that the colleague can take.

Only the person you have selected in the Speak Up system will be able to see your report. No one else who is authorised to respond to conversations on the platform will be able to see this.

If this information needs to be shared with other colleagues to help resolve this, the person who received your report will ask for your permission through Speak Up before doing so.

Colleagues who create an account with Speak Up can submit a maximum of 10 reports a month from the same account.

Yes, we hope to keep you updated on the progress of Speak Up at Sue Ryder. Insight we can share with colleagues in the future may include:

• The percentage of reports responded to within seven days
• Concern areas most reported and if these numbers increase or decrease over time
• Improvements we have made in response to reported concerns
• Colleague feedback on using the platform
• Updates we make to the Speak Up tool.

We hope that Speak Up will help us to recognise areas across Sue Ryder where we can make improvements. An important sign of success for Speak Up will be the future results of our staff and volunteer surveys (Let’s Talk and Volunteer Voice).

We hope that using Speak Up will ensure that colleagues can raise concerns and achieve positive resolutions to ensure that Sue Ryder is a great place to work and volunteer.

If you have any questions about Speak Up, you can email speakup@sueryder.org

Please note that this email address cannot be used to make Speak Up reports or check the progress of these. You will receive updates on your report via the Speak Up platform.