Our clinical governance team investigate all incidents reported to Florence thoroughly and with sensitivity. We’ll listen to you, look after you and your service users, and work to find the best outcome for all parties involved.
We are advocates for both the organisations we work with and our care professionals, and our clear incident management process always treats you with empathy and fairness.
Always report
We aim to resolve any reported incident within four weeks. We review every incident and update our processes with what we learn, keeping our workforce safety up to date and ever-evolving.
If an incident involving a Florence professional happens at your hospital or care home, we’ll work with you to resolve it, from initial report to resolution.
Using the right documents to gather statements and reflective accounts can make investigations simpler and more efficient. Here are four templates you can use if an incident happens at your hospital or care home.
Frances Kyprianou
Director of Nursing & Governance
Frances Kyprianou
Director of Nursing & Governance
Frances is a passionate and driven registered nurse dedicated to inspiring safe, quality care with over 15 years of experience. Previously to Florence, Frances worked at Sonderwell and Better Healthcare Services, specialising in quality assurance, governance and clinical operations. She brings a wealth of knowledge across social care, complex care, the NHS and more. Frances joined Florence in 2024 as Director of Quality & Governance.
Louise Morris
Head of Nursing and Governance
Louise Morris
Head of Nursing and Governance
Louise is an adult nurse with over 20 years experience. She manages clinical incidents and often meets care professionals virtually to offer support or clarify if incidents are complicated.
Part of her role is to review lessons learned from clinical incidents. This includes making changes to Florence policies and training content. Louise loves to meet Florence nurses, care assistants and support workers, and hear their ideas to improve practice.
Mohammed Alom
Quality Assurance Officer & DDPO
Mohammed Alom
Quality Assurance Officer & DDPO
Mohammed has been the deputy data protection officer and quality assurance lead at Florence since 2018.
He’s in charge of the incident management system, deals with adverse events correctly and effectively, and supports care professionals through investigations. He also works with external bodies like the NMC, police and safeguarding.
He oversees the incident management system, deals with adverse events correctly and effectively, and supports care professionals and healthcare organisations through investigations. He also works with external bodies like the NMC, police and safeguarding.
Lauren Clark
Safeguarding and Governance Officer
Lauren Clark
Safeguarding and Governance Officer
Lauren works closely with care professionals to make sure incidents get handled quickly and efficiently. She also takes care of Florence policies and helps prepare for regulatory audits, like those conducted by the Care Inspectorate.
Gary Stevenson
Registered Manager for Northern Ireland
Gary Stevenson
Registered Manager for Northern Ireland
Gary is our Registered Manager for Northern Ireland. He’s been a registered nurse for 10 years and has worked with Brain Injury, Care of the Elderly, Intensive Care, Infection Prevention and Control.
He supports Northern Irish Nurses with clinical issues and to maintain their professional registration through supervisions, appraisals, re-validation, support and management of clinical incidents.
Jen Fyvie
Branch Nurse and Registered Manager, Scotland
Jen Fyvie
Branch Nurse and Registered Manager, Scotland
Jen is the branch nurse and registered manager for Florence in Scotland. She’s been a registered nurse for 14 years and has been working as a clinical lead for the last 5 years.
She supports Scottish nurses with clinical issues and maintaining their professional registration through supervisions, appraisals, revalidation support and management of clinical incidents.
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Please don’t approach Florence care professionals directly for statements. Instead, let us work with you to investigate so that we’re both fully aware of the context.
We’ll contact the care professional involved, share concerns and request a statement on your behalf. If you have any specific questions that you’d like us to ask, please pass them on. We’re also happy to arrange follow-up questions after a statement has been shared with you.
If you want to speak to someone about an ongoing investigation, please contact incidents@florence.co.uk.
The best way to report an incident to Florence is by email, so that both parties have a record of what was reported and when. Send a brief outline of what happened to incidents@florence.co.uk. If you need advice about whether the issue is reportable, please speak to your account manager.
We aim to investigate within four weeks of incidents being reported. Sometimes investigations can take longer, especially if third parties like police or safeguarding teams are involved.
You should follow the statement guidance, making sure that you give a full account – including relevant background information. Keep it factual: don’t give your opinion about what others may or may not have done. Instead, stick to what you saw or heard personally. Always use professional language rather than slang or offensive language (unless you are directly quoting someone).
If you need any help writing your statement, please get in touch and we’ll support you.
Make sure you read the healthcare organisation description before you commit to working a shift. If you find out the healthcare organisation description isn’t accurate when you arrive for your shift, that could be because resident needs or occupancy have changed.
If you’re not comfortable taking extra responsibility, don’t accept the keys and call Florence immediately. If you feel overwhelmed partway through the shift, raise your concerns with both Florence and the service manager to get support. Under those circumstances, you will need to complete the full shift.
In both cases, you should create an incident report to help stop the situation happening again.
You are responsible for documenting the care that you give, and you need a login to do so. You may be given a generic login – for example, “Agency Nurse” instead of a name. If so, write your name at the end of each entry to maintain a clear audit trail of the care you’ve given.
You should never use someone else’s login or ask someone else to complete care documentation for you. If you’re asked to do that, speak to the person in charge and politely explain why it’s important for you to have your own login.
If you can’t access the system with your own login, please raise this as an incident by telling both the manager at the care home or hospital and Florence.
Always report your concerns, even if you’re unsure about specifics. You can report to incidents@florence.co.uk through Florence’s Freedom to Speak Up Officer. Florence also has a Raising Concerns and Whistleblowing policy.
Yes, you can do this by visiting the care professional’s profile via your account and selecting the ‘block’ option, then providing a reason for the block.
We’ll respect your decision to block the care professional without question, but it helps improve quality of care if you also send an email to incidents@florence.co.uk to tell us why you don’t want to work with the care professional anymore. Given the right training and support, low-level concerns that are not incidents can be “nipped in the bud” early.
Unless there’s a serious risk, our approach to NMC referrals is to wait until the investigation is complete, to make sure there are no alternatives to reporting.
If possible, we prefer to help nurses mitigate risk to their practice by giving them opportunities to reflect and learn. We ask that clients tell us if they think an urgent referral is needed, and share their reasons with us before reporting.
If you think you’ve been maliciously accused, write a thorough statement about the allegations anyway. Keep it factual, rather than emotional. If you believe there’s a reason someone might have made up an allegation about you, please include this in your statement and we’ll investigate.
While it’s important to be helpful and engage with the investigation, you should immediately tell Florence’s incident support team by emailing incidents@florence.co.uk.
We’ll support you by finding out what the allegation is. Then, we’ll get copies of witness statements, MAR charts and other documents that might help you prepare for the meeting. Sometimes, we can help you write a really detailed statement, which might mean you no longer have to attend the meeting.
If applicable, tell your union about the investigation – especially if your practice is in question.
While it’s important to be helpful, engage in the investigation and provide a statement, you should immediately tell Florence’s incident support team by emailing incidents@florence.co.uk.
We’ll support you by finding out what the allegation is. Then, we’ll get copies of witness statements, MAR charts and other documents that might help you write the statement. We’ll also review your statement before it’s sent to the service to make sure it’s a factual, thorough response to the allegation.
If applicable, tell your union about the investigation – especially if your practice is in question. They may offer a statement-checking service.
Don’t panic! Around three-quarters of NMC referrals are closed at the initial screening stage.
Tell us straight away and one of our governance nurses will support you and help identify any training needs, reflection and remediation.
If we ask you to write a reflective account, we’ve identified a gap in your knowledge and want you to do some extra training. We need to make sure you’ve learned from the incident and know what you’d do differently to stop something similar happening again.
If you’re a registered nurse, we recommend using the NMC template for reflection. You can also use this template for revalidation. If you’re a care assistant or support worker, click here to download a reflective account template.
Investigating “near misses” is just as important as investigating adverse events. Learning from them could prevent a more serious incident – or a fatality. Near miss reports provide vital information about working conditions and processes, as well as highlighting areas that might need attention so they don’t become a problem.
When care professionals are involved in a medication error or omission, it’s important for them to review relevant documents so they can write a comprehensive statement. These might include topical MAR charts and entries from controlled drug registers.
If we ask you to supply this, please redact any identifiable details like service user names. It also helps if you can highlight the error on the MAR, especially if there are multiple entries.
When we close an investigation, we email all people involved and tell them about the outcome, unless doing so breaches confidentiality. We’ll normally contact the person who reported the incident and the witnesses that we spoke to during the investigation.