Supporting nurses in acute and emergency care settings to speak up.

Abstract

Nurses' competence and confidence in raising concerns with senior clinicians is integral to patient safety and the quality of patient care. If nurses do not speak up when needed it can contribute to incidences of failure to rescue. There are many barriers to nurses speaking up in busy emergency departments and complex major trauma patient cases. Assessment and communication tools such as the SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) approach and communication techniques such as graded assertiveness can help to overcome some of these barriers. This article uses a case study to discuss how nurses can respectfully but efficiently escalate their concerns to the trauma team leader. It describes barriers to nurses speaking up and tools that can support nurses to speak up, with a focus on graded assertiveness.