Following a serious incident or death of a loved one, the family support lead is a single point of contact for a family and will support them through the serious incident process. They work alongside the incident investigation lead ensuring that the family are supported throughout. The length of time they may be involved with a family and the level of involvement varies.
This is a role that will be allocated by your senior leadership team to a senior healthcare practitioner such as deputy manager, team manager, clinical lead or matron for quality (this list is not exhaustive).
If in your job you will be expected to undertake this role, the information on this page should be used to help guide and support you throughout the process.
In Mid Mersey as part of the Kinnect project, we've been looking at the role of the family support lead (previously known as family liaison officer) and in September 2020, introduced training that will support any member of staff who undertakes this role.
The training has been developed based on feedback from families and staff. Through it, we aim for family support leads to:
- Have a greater understanding of the role and expectations
- Increased awareness of the family experience following a serious incident
- Feel supported and informed about how to fulfil this role well
- Understand the different people who are involved in a serious incident investigation and their roles
- Have access to tools and resources that can better support them in this role
- Reflect on previous experiences and learning with other staff members in their training group
Future dates
- Monday 28 June, 1.30 – 4.30pm via MS Teams
- Monday 26 July, 1.30 – 4.30pm via MS Teams
- Monday 23 August, 1.30 – 4.30pm via MS Teams
- Monday 20 September, 1.30 – 4.30pm via MS Teams
Booking
If you carry out the family support lead role, you can book your place by email to Bernadette
Please include your name, job title and borough(s) where you work.
Course capacity
To maintain social distancing between attendees and facilitators, places are limited to eight people per session. Please be aware that due to the pandemic, training is currently being offered via MS Teams.
If you're unable to attend, please let us know with as soon as you can so we can offer your place to someone else.
Facilitators
These sessions are facilitated by an experienced family support lead and have been supported with representatives from our patient experience team and investigation team.
The family support lead role can be both rewarding and challenging. Working with service users, families and carers who have experienced a serious incident or death of a loved one can while under our care can be stressful and you may at times feel isolated. Our peer supervision for family support leads has been introduced to offer emotional and practical support.
Peer supervision offers the opportunity to reflect on your practice and experiences when fulfilling this role. By sharing experience, skills and knowledge within a group setting we hope to increase the skills, confidence and competence of both individuals and the group.
MySupervision
The session facilitator will record the content of the peer supervision sessions on MySupervision and both the facilitator and you will have access to a copy of the supervision records. This will be done in line with the Trust's Clinical Supervision and Support Procedure.
On our resources page we have information about the wide range of support available online and in our local communities. This is information that you may want to signpost your families to.
To avoid overwhelming someone, please just provide information about the services and support you feel would be most relevant and beneficial to them.
Our Trust Library and Knowledge Service have developed a list of recommended reading that can be accessed here.
This information has been developed as part of the Trust's Kinnect project which aims to improve the experiences of families following a serious incident or complaint.