The NHS celebrated its 70th anniversary this year, but who knew that 70 years down the line the service would be a struggling so much?
After facing a huge number of cuts over the last few years, and with almost 100,000 unfilled vacancies, it’s no surprise that NHS staff are under a huge amount of pressure, but what that pressure leads to might surprise some outsiders.
The 2017 NHS Staff Survey revealed that 28% of NHS staff experienced bullying, harassment or abuse from patients, relatives or other members of the public over the year. It also showed that staff at ambulance trusts were much more likely to be victims of abuse by the public (47%) than any other profession within the NHS.
Unfortunately, it’s not just a case of the drunk patient being aggressive towards the nurses taking care of them either. The survey revealed that 24% of staff experienced bullying, harassment or abuse from other members of staff in that year, and that only 48% of those who experienced bullying reported it.
From verbal disagreements and rudeness, to ignoring someone, to being overly critical of their work, bullying can come in all sorts of forms within the NHS. But why is it happening? And what impact does it have on the employees that are affected?
Charlie’s Story
Dr Charlie Chan began his position as a consultant surgeon in Cheltenham Hospital in 2000 but left his job just 13 years later because of bullying and intimidation from other members of staff.
It all started when the hospital structure changed, and Charlie found himself working under a new chief executive. “The structure changed and so the whole atmosphere within the organisation changed...
"It became a culture of passive aggression.”
Over the years leading up to the end of Charlie’s career in the NHS, he became a whistleblower, raising serious patient safety issues that were never responded to. He said: “There’s no transparency between the staff and the organisation, you end up with a wall of silence. Often you don’t get an acknowledgement, let alone a reply.”
With all that went on in Charlie’s 27 years at the NHS, he never stopped raising important issues with the board. Sadly, that’s not the case for all of the organisations employees because many of them are too concerned about being marked as a ‘troublemaker’.
For many of Charlie’s colleagues, the NHS is no longer a job they love, and is just a way to earn enough to pay the bills. He said: “As soon as they reach the earliest pension point they’re out. Nobody wants to stay, but people think that they’ll be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire if they go.”
Luckily Charlie had the option to leave his post in the NHS and run a private practice.
Charlie now uses social media to teach others what really goes on in the NHS, and how important it is to speak out.
Umesh’s Story
Dr Umesh Prabhu moved to the UK from India and found himself working as a consultant paediatrician in Bury when his own mistake led him to become an advocate for patient safety.
When a 36-week-old baby died after a series of mistakes on the ward, Umesh knew it was time to make a stand: “I thought, I’m useless to be a paediatrician. I wanted to go back to India. Then one of my mentors said: ‘you are a coward running away from the problem.’ So, I started developing an interest in patient safety...
"It is the mothers’ pain which drives me to do it.”
But it’s not only patient safety that Umesh wants to improve. After being accused of bullying on his ward, Umesh knows all too well the impact it can have on staff. He said: “I didn’t realise I was bullying one of the junior doctors. but she taught me the best lesson of my life. She told me how I made her feel and I cried.”
With shortages of 10,000 doctors and almost 40,000 nurses in the NHS, it’s no surprise that there’s a huge amount of stress on all of its employees.
Umesh said: “The staff are under tremendous pressure, and, gradually, it’s getting worse. People feel under pressure. When you’re under pressure you transmit that pressure to your colleagues because you care a lot for patients. When something goes wrong you get very upset and you start shouting at the person next to you. That’s what the bullying is.”
When he became Medical Director in Bury, Umesh had around 700 patients waiting to be seen by a consultant for more than a year. The government took control of the service away from doctors by bringing in more money, fixing lots of different problems, but introducing what he calls ‘management culture’.
Umesh has now given over 300 lectures in his efforts to end bullying and promote patient safety in the NHS.
David’s Story
After working in a medcial camp at the end of the Vietnam war and spending 5 years in a university hospital in Nigeria, Dr David Drew returned home to England to work his way through the ranks and became medical head of the paediatric department in Walsall.
When serious cuts were made to his department, David became what’s commonly known as a whistleblower. He said: “There were a series of complaints that I made to the chairman of the board and the chief executive. Then they started to mess around with me. They didn’t do anything, blamed me for the whole thing and said I was just a born complainer.”
Over a period of 18 months, he raised numerous issues about the hospital department and desperately wanted to improve standards across the board. That all came to an end when David was suspended after a member of the senior nursing staff claimed that he was bullying her.
He said: “It was just the trust’s way of pushing me to one side for a while and being able to ignore the complaints I was making about patient safety, child protection, safeguarding and the bullying culture that was spreading across the trust.”
Throughout his time in the NHS, David’s complaints were repeatedly ignored, and he sees this as a serious form of bullying.
David is now committed to seeing a change in the service and has published an autobiography sharing his experiences.
So, what can the NHS do to fix bullying culture?
Unfortunately, bullying culture is all too common in the NHS, but there are subtle changes that can be made to reduce pressures on staff and promote a healthy working environment.
A spokesperson from Unite the Union said: "The NHS needs to be properly resourced and staffed in order to remove the instances of staff feeling forced into working beyond their contracted hours and finish time or in understaffed departments."
"Removing this pressure would hopefully have a positive effect on their treatment of others, making the NHS a more positive and pleasant place to work."
While filling the vast number of vacancies within the service might resolve the issue, it's not a quick fix.
An NHS Employers spokesperson said: “Bullying in the workplace and in the NHS is completely unacceptable and impacts both staff and patients.”
“Our hardworking colleagues do an incredible job under extreme pressure and it is paramount that all NHS organisations, national and local, address and reduce bullying and create a supportive environment.”
“The greatest way to foster a supportive environment and have a positive impact is to ensure line managers lead by example and provide staff with appropriate support."
NHS Employers supports the Social Partnership Forum which has outlined a call to action with the goal to provide ‘excellent, compassionate leadership in a supportive culture where staff can flourish and problem behaviours such as bullying disappear.’
As the issue of bullying in the NHS is increasingly exposed year on year, thousands of NHS staff members are left hoping that bullying culture in their workplace will end.