When the culture is the risk

Overview

This module examines how harm can grow out of the way a whole service is run. It covers organisational abuse in the law of both nations, the Care Quality Commission's four groups of closed culture warning signs, Darley and Latané's bystander effect and Diane Vaughan's normalisation of deviance. It then sets out what leaders can see from outside the room, and provider accountability in Wales under RISCA 2016. This module examines who holds safeguarding accountability across councils, NHS bodies, charities and care providers, including the responsible individual in Wales. It works through the Oxfam GB Haiti case and the Charity Commission's statutory inquiry findings, then sets out five kinds of information a board should see and the difference between reassurance and assurance. The question every good board asks is simple: how do we know?

What you'll develop

In this Bitesize, you will develop the ability to:

1. 1Describe organisational abuse, the Care Quality Commission's four groups of closed culture warning signs, and where accountability sits under RISCA 2016 in Wales.
2. 2Explain how the bystander effect and the normalisation of deviance allow poor practice to persist, and why silence or a clean record is not evidence of safety.
3. 3Use data, workforce information, voice, unannounced visits and outside links to judge whether a service may be developing a closed culture.
4. 4Explain why a board can delegate safeguarding tasks but not accountability, and identify where accountability sits in councils, NHS bodies, charities and Welsh care providers.
5. 5Assess the Oxfam GB case and the Charity Commission's inquiry findings to identify governance and culture failures that boards should recognise in themselves.