Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSNHS nurse bullying 'drastically needs examination', warns Healthcare Commission
Healthcare Commission chair Sir Ian Kennedy has called for renewed focus on nurse leadership and issued a warning about the ‘corrosive’ nature of bullying in the NHS
He also said the leadership of nurses, ‘drastically needs some examination’ in light of stories about patients not being taken to the toilet or fed at appropriate times.
A “strong strand” running through the Bristol Inquiry into children’s heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, which Sir Ian led, was that its chief nurse had been ‘bullying everybody’, he said.
Sir Ian’s warning about the ‘corrosive’ nature of bullying among NHS staff and managers comes in the week the watchdog is being absorbed into the Care Quality Commission.
Speaking to the Health Service Journal, he said: ‘One thing that worries me more than anything else in the NHS is bullying.
‘We’re talking about something that is permeating the delivery of care in the NHS.’
The problem was caused by the NHS’s ‘hierarchical’ culture and occurred across all staff groups, he said. His comments follow last week’s staff survey, in which 8 per cent of respondents said they had experienced bullying, harassment or abuse from a manager or team leader and 12 per cent said they had from colleagues.
Sir Ian said bullying was ‘one of the biggest untalked about problems in the delivery of good care to patients’.
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment.
Online training units, written and reviewed by experts. Earn two hours' CPD and a personalised certificate for your portfolio.
Subscribers get five FREE learning units and non-subscribers can access each learning unit for £10 + VAT.
Share
Readers' comments (13)
Anonymous | 4-Apr-2009 10:55 pm
As a student nurse i have experienced a 'bully' on one of my placements. The nurse was infamous for it and plenty of staff left because of them.
It was brought to the attention of the Trust but seemingly nothing was done because she was back on the ward 'bullying' again the next day.
How she was aloud to carry on being charge nurse and mentoring students i dont know
Unsuitable or offensive?
Gana Davis | 6-Apr-2009 9:06 am
I agree with the comment above..it's not just the patients that get the end of it all, the other staff do as well and this has to stop.
Unsuitable or offensive?
marion worthing | 2-May-2009 5:51 pm
I agree with the above statements as a community nurse i feel i have also been bullied and at long last im going to do something about it. I dont understand how nurses can be rude to other healthcare professionals but they seem to get away with it. Im now going to lobby my mp and the PCT in whic i work. i have been reading about suiside rates in nursing im angry at myself for letting myself be bullied and sad i never done it sooner.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 3-May-2009 6:20 pm
I am currently coming to the end of my three years of training to become a nurse and unfortunately within this time I have come across many bullies within a variety of my placement areas. I went into nursing to make a difference to individuals and families lives, just like in the past both myself and my family have recieved from some amazing healthcare professionals, ones who are able to put their differences aside and work as a team to provide the best quality of care. Unfortunately I have seen little of this since commencing the course both as a student and also as a patient. I believe that nursing is no longer a vocation, it is something that many enter because they are offered funds to do the course and also because they feel it is an 'easy' job or because they cannot think of other options. Why are the 'bullies' of this profession allowed to continue whether they are bullying students, other staff members, patients or their families??? As a student it is often hard to stand up to these individuals or go to someone about the problems you are facing as you feel this may be reflected on your marks from placement! In all honesty the only time i have ever stood up to these people is when they have effected patients, however when it effects me I just keep going, but why should I, why should anyone????
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 5-May-2009 9:53 pm
My Wife currently works in a busy recovery unit. The levels of poor leadership and bullying from senior staff to accomplish the 'task' of recovering patients in sometimes inadequate conditions is atrocious. The times have changed from the team environments that I used to work in as a Nurse. Leadership is poorly lacking, managerialism taking over. New qualified students show little respect and bring the secondary school mentality with them into the wards with cliques and gangs forming with no control or respect of hierarchy. This leaves those marginalised staff more vulnerable to bullying from younger inexperienced staff. Modern matrons merely administer and have not brought the discipline necessary back to the wards. All in all the experience I have of Bristol is that nursing is in dire need of an injection of good quality, qualified leadership from ward level up.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 10-May-2009 9:47 am
Unfortunately it is not just within the NHS that bullying goes on but in the private sector too. My colleagues and I are being bullied into radical changes in our working practices and will be on a lower pay band too. Meanwhile (those who haven't left) struggle on to continue to work offering the same level of service to our patients. What has happened to this profession?
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 7-Jun-2009 2:34 pm
My wife is an ICU nurse in Hammersmith Hospital and from an outsiders’ point of view. Modern nursing has along way to go in terms of leadership and management. It seems to me that discrimination and bullying are endemic within the NHS culture and that rectifying this would provide a massive improvement in patient treatment and career prospects of all nurses. There are senior nurses and sisters who seem to hark back to the Victorian days of autocratic and tyrannical leadership. As company director responsible for a larger team of professionals I find this alien. If I or senior member of my team conducted this type of leadership practice my team would up and leave and I would be fired. It seems actually raising a grievance as my wife did or trying to fight back in anyway as many of her colleges’ have is pointless, as bullies and bigots can hide behind ineffectual draw out processes and ingrained protectionism. My daughter also wants to start studying as a nurse but what should I tell her? nursing is now a modern profession where a person can aspire and grow within a culture of collaboration and mutual respect or a place where only the strong survive
Unsuitable or offensive?
doctor | 24-Jan-2010 8:18 pm
Please join the Bullying In The NHS Site on Facebook if you are worried about this matter. I am fed up with the bulying I have seen of Clinical staff which seems to be an entrenched method of doing things !
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 29-Jan-2010 11:44 pm
Hi, yes I agree with what everyone is saying - bullying is rife in the NHS. I know staff that have been bullying for years - allegedly been dealt with and still bullying today. Why can't they be named and shamed? Why can't staff be asked to identify them anonymously? You would think management wanted to keep them, hush everything up, brush it under the carpet - everything but address the issues. What on earth is going on??
Unsuitable or offensive?
gavin barnard | 23-Feb-2010 7:28 pm
The recent news about allegations of bullying within Downing Street reawakened my feelings of anger at the bullying that contributed to the ending of my career within mental health services.
The Crisis Team in which I worked were aware of pending service changes and were keen to help begin the process and not leave it to the last minute, as usual. The service manager left a consultation meeting to the last day and gave us 24 hours notice of the meeting taking place. We politely requested the meeting be delayed by a few days to give as many staff as possible a chance to be present. The service manager responded by telling us he wouldn't change the meeting and would consider taking disciplinary action against staff who didn't attend.
We took out a grievance alledging bullying and using the Trust procedure. The investigation was carried out by the service managers line manager who wrote in her report "he (the service manager) admitted threatening to take disciplinary action but had no intention of acting on that threat, therefore it's not bullying".
Surprised and shocked we attempted to use the next stage of the grievance procedure. This was blocked. We wrote detailed accurate letters asking reasonable questions of more senior Trust managers in particular in wanting to understand what bullying is, if it wasn't what we experienced. Needless to say we recieved no answers just sychophantic waffle suggesting that it was our fault in the first place and that we didn't want to engage in "partnership working".
In conclusion I wrote to the chief executive who replied briefly, suggesting I get some counselling.
The real damage was done by creating a poisonous culture of mistrust resulting in dissafected staff leaving, taking with them experience you can't buy. All so a box could be succesfully ticked.
My advice is, sadly, don't trust the Trust.
Gavin Barnard
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 10-Sep-2010 9:48 pm
I am a student suspended I have had lies told about me by both nurses and mentors with colaboration. I have had unison rep call me in aroom go on about mymothers death and this unison rep also asked about my childrens ages to get me to back down, he had a social services man waiting outside the room thankfully my children are adults, but what would they have done if my children were under the age of 14. I am putting together my statements and there lies together and going to take them where they can be seen. When allegations are made about a student who do they go to. Well the only people are the people who put you there in the first place there is no other independent governing body. I have had the most horrific things done and said about me. If any other student out there is being bullied by either mentor or nurse or both please put what has happened to you. hopefully David Cameron will help
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 10-Feb-2011 0:10 am
I am a Senior band 7 in an acute NHS trust and am being virtually bullied out of my job by senior management.They stop at nothing lies ,bullying and deception.I have been a loyal and totally committed member of staff and I run a very good ward with totally dedicated staff.I feel totally demoralised and very sad that anyone would allow this to continue but the higher I escalate my concerns the worse the bullying becomes.What was I guilty? of standing up for patients rights and dignity due to inadequate staffing levels.Someone needs to stop this behaviour within the NHS and remember why we entered this profession in the first place.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 11-Feb-2011 2:46 pm
Bullying is contrary to the philosophy and values of the nursing profession and counterproductive to interdisciplinary team working and effective patient care.
Would further training for nurses in leadship positions and others who have personal issues which lead them to bullying help?
All aspects of bullying and how and why it occurs could be examined in a non-threatening environment with experts such as psychologists/psychotherapists, counsellors, peer support, etc. where they could also learn alternative coping and improved communciation strategies and how to create a more positive, congenial and productive working environment which is far more rewarding to them and to all concerned as a direct or indirect result of their behaviour.
Those who bully usually do for a variety of reasons such as personal problems, growing up or living in that type of culture where if they have known nothing other may percieve as 'normal', poor self esteem, lack of confidence, overwork, overwhelming stress, a wounded helper syndrome, delusions of grandeur, depression, feelings of being stuck in a rut, a variety of complexes, projection of their difficulties onto others and usually the most vulnerable, personal dislike for others, personal differences such as education, race, appearance, etc., fears of threat by other colleagues such as junior colleagues and students who have had a training which is considered more up to date and technically advanced, narcissism and other personality disorders. These individuals are usually deeply sad and unfortunate. They may be very lonely and mask deep desires for recognition whilst being unable to communicate their personal needs to others for fear of losing face. In fact the motives for this type of behaviour may be endless.
It seems that it is necessary and just as important to examine and treat the roots of the problem as it is to pick up the pieces afterwards when severe and irreversible damage may have been done.
Unsuitable or offensive?