About purpleflag.co.uk
What is Purple Flag?
Welcome to Purple Flag Innovation: Elevating Student Safety in Healthcare Placements
Empowering pre-registration healthcare students and ensuring their safety is paramount in every clinical placement. Introducing the Purple Flag Innovation, as a ground breaking tool designed to revolutionise placement quality and student support has been trailblazed by University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust and is now subject to an Adopt and Spread Project across England.
What is Purple Flag Innovation?
Purple Flag is an intuitive, easy-to-access tool crafted to swiftly address urgent and emergent issues encountered by students during their clinical placements. It serves as a direct gateway for students to raise concerns, enabling them to seek assistance from the Student Support Team promptly and efficiently, without any delays.
The vision and ethos:
At Purple Flag, vision and ethos is clear: to resolve issues swiftly, mitigate any potential consequences, and implement proactive measures to prevent their recurrence. Purple Flag fosters a culture of safety and support within healthcare organisations, ensuring that students and staff alike feel empowered to speak up and seek help when needed.
Why Purple Flag?
Recognised by NHS England as a beacon of best practice in the Raising Concerns and Speaking Up category within the Safe Learning Charter (2024), Purple Flag Innovation is the gold standard for student safety in healthcare placements. Originating at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Purple Flag has achieved remarkable results in just a short span.
Key Benefits:
- Increased student confidence in speaking up and raising concerns by an impressive 57% within just 12 months
- Swift resolution of issues, ensuring students receive the support they need without delay
- Proactive measures to prevent recurrence, fostering a safer learning environment for all
- Embedding a culture of psychological safety and freedom to speak up
Join the Movement:
Purple Flag Innovation isn't just a tool; it's a movement. With its success validated and endorsed by NHS England, Purple Flag is now poised for national adopt and spread. Join us in our mission to elevate student safety, empower learners, and revolutionise healthcare placements nationwide.
Implement Purple Flag Innovation in your organisation and embark on a journey towards safer, more supportive clinical placements. |With Purple Flag, commit to ensuring that every student's voice is heard and every concern is addressed with the urgency it deserves.
Core Values
- Provide a safe and confidential space for learners and placement areas to raise a concern
- Facilitate and champion psychological safety within the learning environment
- Provide responsive rather than reactive student and placement support
- Address Purple Flags as learning improvement opportunities through a culture of safety and inclusion
Purple Flag Criteria
- Unsafe staffing levels in clinical area
- Insufficient supervision provision
- Supernumerary status at risk
- Learner unable to attend additional training
- Poor learning opportunities
- Risk of, or actual patient safety incident
- Risk of, or actual learner safety incident
- Serious learner wellbeing concern
- Major or Critical Incident declared
Our Story
Welcome to the Purple Flag Project at University Hospitals Dorset, where we're revolutionising the way we support our pre-registration healthcare students on placement.
I'm Hannah Street, the Learning Environment Lead, and I'm thrilled to share the story behind this transformative initiative.
Our journey began with a growing concern: despite our best efforts, an increasing number of issues were arising for students on placement. As the Student Support Team lead, it became clear to me that we needed a more proactive and responsive system in place.
The catalyst for the Purple Flag project came from a recognition of the challenges our students faced on a daily basis. With a large, multisite hospital to support, it was simply not feasible to address every concern immediately.
Students needed a way to raise issues in real-time, and staff needed a streamlined process to provide support promptly.
To develop a solution, we collaborated closely with the Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at UHD, drawing on her insights and expertise. Together, we conceptualised the Purple Flag - a simple, user-friendly e-form accessible to all via the hospital's intranet.
This digital tool serves as a lifeline for students and staff alike, allowing them to raise a Purple Flag for a wide range of issues, from supervision and assessment problems to staffing issues and patient or student safety incidents.
However, the Purple Flag isn't just about addressing issues as they arise; it's about fostering a culture of psychological safety within our organisation.
We want every student to feel empowered to speak up and seek help when needed, without fear of judgment or reprisal. This ethos is at the heart of everything we do, from the design of the Purple Flag system to the way we support and advocate for our students.
Of course, implementing such a system hasn't been without its challenges. We've faced technical hurdles with the e-form, as well as resistance and misconceptions about its use. But each obstacle has only strengthened our resolve to make the Purple Flag a success.
Looking ahead, we're excited about the next phase of our journey. We're working towards a national Adopt and Spread of Purple Flag whilst integrating it into our policies and procedures to ensure its sustainability and impact. We're also exploring ways to expand its use beyond pre-registration healthcare students, recognising that issues of safety and support extend to learners across all disciplines.
One of the things I'm most proud of is the recognition we've received for our efforts. Being included as a case study for best practice in the Safe Learning Charter by NHS England is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team. It's also a validation of the impact that the Purple Flag is having on the learning experience of our students and the future of healthcare education.
In closing, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has been a part of this journey; the students and staff who have bravely raised their Purple Flags, those who have supported them, and the entire Student Support Team who have worked tirelessly to make this vision a reality.
Together, we're shaping a safer, more supportive learning environment for future generations of healthcare professionals.