BULLYING WILL ONLY STOP WHEN ALL BULLIES ARE PUNISHED
Posted in: Bullying | Leadership
20-Apr-2009 4:17 pm
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Solution: Policies need to be implemented equally to VSM and Directors , who in my Trust are the main perpetrators of bullying. External high level investigations need to take place. However what happens is HR perpetuate the bullying culture either by turning a blind eye or becoming accomplices in the heinous act!!
What ever happened to the NHS CODE of CONDUCT for NHS Managers??
The figures indicated in surveys are probably on the low end, as junior staff are to scared to speak up in case they loose their job
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20-Apr-2009 4:50 pm
As someone who has been subjected to bullying and harrassment over the last 18 months and subsequently victimisation for bringing the bullying and harrassment to the attention of a very senior manager within my organisation, there is no value in highlighting it to the appropriate individuals. Staff are not trained to deal with allegations of bullying and harrassment and there is a common misconception that the senior managers are the bullies. This is not always the case, bullying can happen from junior staf upwards if giving the appropriate power from others. The other problem with the NHS is that it is rife with gossip. The rumourmill works overtime and no-one is ever given a fair trial. Staff are allowed to make informal complaints against staff but never carry them through but still an individual is subjected to gossip which is unfounded. I agree that all staff have to be judged against the NHS code of conduct but generally they never are. A lot of managers now don't deal with performance of staff because the moment they do they are considered bullies.
20-Apr-2009 8:57 pm
At our Trust the mood is set by the very top of the SHA whose CE has perfecting bullying and threatening behavior into an art form.
Consequently those who tether themselves to his apron strings just perpetuate it and are rewarded.
They make examples of a few people naive enough to stick their head above parapet and the message gets through; either join our gang or we will run you out of town.
What would you do in this day and age if you were told to just keep you head down and not cause trouble by speaking the truth or looking out for patient welfare. Nowadays its best to pack your principles away because they are not needed in the NHS . Everyone has a price it seems, bigger salaries, better expenses, and the comfort of the big boys gang wrapped around you.
It needs a sea change at the top to make changes at the bottom.
21-Apr-2009 12:43 pm
Bullying of patients, families, decent caring employees is rife in the public services. Everything comes from the top down as we know.
Statistics, statistics and lies, as disraeli said no difference, same difference, one and the same.
We are all going to be KP'd - I used to think it meant Kerry Packered, or KP nuts! but no it means Kaiser Permanente'd. The american healthcare way, bullying all the way.
Patient's what patients ££££££ oh those patients.
The vulnerable are the easy target, elderly being the main bulls eye.
1948 NHS set up with core principles, to be free for all in this country including 'visitors' free at the point of need if you have an illness, disability or disease. It didn't/doesn't say 'primary' it didn't/doesn't say 'healthcare need' it was and is paid for out of a good idea for an insurance policy called 'National Insurance' whether or not there is enough in the 'kitty' now is irrelevant, animals are treated better than patients in virtually all of the UK 'hospitals'.
Maybe not, maybe it's the same, ie: someone ie the vet decides if they will have a 'quality of life' or should they be put down! No!!! it's the insurance policy syndrome that decides that now.
But back to the 'put down' scene, as the posts on here and the piece from 1/4/09 indicate, bullying is rife internally to staff at all levels, we know from various media coverage it exists towards certain patient groups as well, the culling factor in some cases, ie Gosport/Stafford.
The wastage, inefficiency, overpayment to CEO's and the like, Bonus's, Redundancy pay-off's, inappropriate funding of ridiculous outrageous sections of society in the name of equality, all endemic within the NHS and Local Government where the tax payer funds but cannot get back if and when required without a fight.
No doubt the budget will be spouting another load of diatribe hogwash in the name of efficiency in the budget and making things better for patients and staff as the trotted out excuse, but with the undertones of setting up NHS PLC, for more fred the shred profiteers.
1-May-2009 7:51 pm
unfortunately i had to give up work a good few years ago due to ill health, and i can make assurances that bullying does go on, with hindsight i should have spoken up at the time, but as always the questions loom, "will i get sacked " "will i get bullied more for opening my mouth" etc
20-May-2009 6:49 pm
in my experience the bullying and general bad behaviour occurs on the shop floor. i've found more senior managers to be professional, approachable and helpful. If you have a bullying matron or ward manager then the tone and culture is set and the bully in everyone is allowed to flourish. It's because their line management is often not watching them because they're physically in another office.
30-May-2009 9:00 pm
I am a mental health patient who was bullied by a South London MH Trust and its PCT and for trying to take low level action to nip bullying in the bud I had a manager storm out of a local resolution meeting , lost the ability to access the service he managed, had all services withdrawn and now face a £20,000 legal bill for daring to take legal action against the Trust for disability discrimination.
The same Trust funds the UK's foremost expert on stigma and discrimination as a Director and to research and lecture on mainstream employers and the general public unlawfully stigmatising and discriminating against its service users, a growing problem apparently . The Trust and its PCT have some of the worst Equalities outcomes in the country and neither has ever investigated a service user complaint of disability discrimination against itself.
This is why patients , Trust employees and members of the public wont openly speak out about bullying within the NHS, they are too scared to and with good reason to be as the bullying goes right the way to the top and there are horrendous consequences for speaking out.
7-Jun-2009 5:07 am
Completely agree. When I reported bullying, head of dept stoppped my pay! Am gonna raise a grievance against her. My trusts policy is if a sicknote is late, you lose pay for days its late for, even though when you provide a backadated one! However in my case, HR told me my pay would be fine and still H of D felt it appropriate that I don't get paid.
Have got a case being investigate right now - am DETERMINED not too let it drop as bullying included defamation on facebook then victimisation by other staff. Have been to see my MP to raise these issues.
The problem is, when you are bullied, you are may not be in the right emotional place to face submitting a complaint. Are there any support networks, other that blogs?
7-Jun-2009 12:09 pm
The problem is, when you are bullied, you are may not be in the right emotional place to face submitting a complaint. Are there any support networks, other that blogs?"
Claire,
You're absolutely right to raise the issue of the emotional side of standing up to bullying within the NHS .I'm not really sure if there are any networks to support victims of bullying within the NHS, I'll Google later, but there's certainly a well established pattern of NHS boards, executives and managers heroicly supporting the obstruction of investigations into allegations of bullying and doing their utmost to network the professional and/or psychological demolition of those making the allegations.
Its all very very cold blooded and impersonal. These people routinely bully each other too , its just the way it is. They are cowards.
To give you an example of just how cold blooded, impersonal and cowardly NHS managers can be , my Trust , the South London and Maudsley , refused to even address my complaint as one of Disability Discrimination , flatly denied that any such allegation was ever made and then during Court proceedings I had to resort to it's barrister accidentally handed me a copy of an internal e-mail from the Trust's Disability Equality Scheme compliance officer . The document, now in the public domain, reads:
"
From:Reed, Zoe
To: Rumble, Elaine
Cc: ODonovan Mary, Harwood, Kay, Bell, Stuart, Soncul, Morat, Fairburn, Becky
Subject : FW Formal Complaint about Disability Discrimination of Chief Executive of SLAM and its PCT.
This is the latest letter of complaint from ..... - he still seems to be pursuing the DES ( Diisability Equality Scheme ) route by saying ' I am now making a formal complaint to the PCT and SLAM about the discriminatory way....
I look forward to your urgent guidance on the way forward.
thanks
Zoe
Zoe Reed
Executive Director
Strategy & Business Development
If you are unfamiliar with the names, SLaM's Chief Executive , Nursing Director, FOIA Manager and Complaints Manager were copied in .
This is an NHS executive bully support network in action .
SLaM went on to deny that it had any knowledge of me making a complaint about Disability Discrimination or bullying tactics , its CEO later informed my MP , who also complained about his delaying tactics towards her , that his Trust's delay in responding to a complaint for 4 months occured because he felt it more appropriate to deal with the issue outside of NHS complaints procedures and SLaM still refuses to explain why an FOIA request sent to its CEO about alleged abuses he was a party to was never passed on to the Trust's FOIA Officer.
22 months after my orginal complaint , which was never investigated, SLaM suddenly produced a retaliatory complaint as a legal defence.
To date SLaM has ran up £20,000 in legal costs defending court action its refusal to investigate my complaint forced me to take , costs that are probably going to be imposed on me but enough is enough, this abusive corporate behaviour is destroying the NHS because it buries problems and evidence of failure at everyone elses expense. We saw that in Mid Staff's too.
These people are recklessly playing with others lives.
In SLaM's case the cowardly abusive conduct is also totally hypocritical as well as it pays one of its Directors Professor Graham Thornicroft an awful lot of money to research and lecture on stigma and discrimination its service users face from mainstream employers, non NHS service providers and the general public.
Thornicroft is allegedly the UK's top expert in the subject .
I'm not interested in money or any harm NHS bureaucrats think they can cause me , I simply think its time for public attention to be keenly focussed on the deeply embedded culture of bullying and disability discrimination within the NHS. It's a disgrace that our National Health Service is using taxpayers money to scan the universe for the remotest sign of stigma, discrimination and bullying from mainstream employers and service providers while deliberately ignoring the open secret culture of bullying and disability discrimination it perpetuates everyday in the NHS work environment and service space.
7-Jun-2009 1:53 pm
Well Done Zoe-
It's about time we NAME and SHAME the whole lot of these Directors- 'parasites' feeding off taxpayers and rejoicing at breaching every Equality, Dignity at Work and Grievance Policy.
If every DIrector or Trust outthere was named and shamed, yuo woul dsoon see grievnace and complaints taken seriuosly, who knows you may even see a down ward trend in bullying/harssment and discrimination. Let's give it a go.
THe ET are there to support the employers in the moajority of cases, so one's only means of justice may be to uncover their dispicable, inhumane behaviour of others!!
9-Aug-2009 12:04 pm
The following ways of treating people can constitute bullying:
Professionally attacking an employee by regularly changing goalposts and expecting perfection, dramatically reducing somone's responsibilities or setting taks outside agreed job descriptions.
Criticising individuals, either publicly or privately, in a manner that is unwarranted, unduly sustained or unfair.
Having a coercive management style - for instance, by marginalising or ostracising someone, or by withholding relevant information.
9-Aug-2009 4:26 pm
Patients can also be bullied as the norm and the argument that they have unreasonable expectations of a perfect service can be abused too.
I recently requested access to my medical notes from Lewisham PCT 's Chief Executive Officer.
Nothing happened.
Two weeks later I contacted the PCT again and I was informed the Chief Executive had not passed my request on and instructed to send my personal details, NHS reference number and photograph to the PCT's Information Officer.
On doing this I received a response e-mail that related to an organisation in Exeter , wished me a 'Happy Christmas' ( this was late July ) and did not have a Lewisham PCT return e-mail address.
I phoned the contact number provided in the response but there was nothing in the answerphone message to link it with Lewisham PCT and as I had sent enough information for people to steal my identity ( a real concern with so many high profile news stories about the NHS losing patient data ) . I contacted the Exeter service the mail related to for assurance and the manager there apologised for the confusion and after making enquiries explained that Lewisham PCT's Information Officer worked with them and agreed with me that the Information Officer needed to have a dedicated Lewisham PCT e-mail for patients and members of the public so as not to confuse me, his staff and the Information Officers roles.
I paid premium rate for this reassurance but I was grateful that the Exeter manager had perfectly understood and politely dealt with my concerns.
I phoned Lewisham PCT to explain what had happened. Unlike the professional response I got from the Exeter manager, this was the result:
1. The alternative contact number in the mail was eventually answered by a woman who angrilly accused me of blaming her for the Information Officer's mistake. I calmly explained that as she was designated as the contact for the information Officer in the automated response to patients it would be helpful if the Information Officer updated and corrected it and for PCT answerphone messages to mention Lewisham PCT in them. I dont think I was being unreasonable bearing in mind I had just paid through the teeth in call centre charges to Exeter to ensure my personal details had not gone astray and Lewisham PCT has a legal duty to handle and store information properly.
2. Lewisham PCT's complaints manager , the woman who had asked me to send my personal details and photograph to the Information Officer in the first place, officiously snapped at me that it was unreasonable of me to expect staff to be at their desks at all times. This was irrelevant to my predicament, the e-mail response I had received appeared to have originated from Exeter, my concern was the physical whereabouts of my details not Lewisham PCT staff, and it is precisely because staff are so often away from their desks that their answerphones messages should include the name of the organisation they work for. Its not rocket science but it seems to be for Lewisham PCT.
3. The Information Officer and Complaints Officer then denied that they had received the personal information on the form they had electronically sent me in a non PDF text file.
I patiently explained it was in the body of the e-mail I had sent in simple text. I am a former IT tutor and computer technician but I dont think I was being unreasonable in expecting two well paid middle class professionals to spot my personal details in an e-mail .
Even so, I received another response telling me they could not find my details.
I copied and pasted my original e-mail back highlighting them in the completed form.
I then received another response stating I could not send my personal details electronically and that they needed to be physically printed off and that there would be a £50 administrative charge for seeing ( I did not request copies of ) my records.
At the foot of that mail was a casual discussion between the Information officer and Complaints Manager about how much they could charge me.
4. Here's the Information Officers response.
Dear Mr ..........,
I can assure you that I have not received a copy of your application either by post or from our Complaints Manager ............ I have just e-mailed her for clarification (we do not work at the same location I'm at Waterloo whilst Margaret is in Lee in Lewisham).
turning to the other issues you raised:
There is provision in the schedules of the Data protection Act for organisations to charge for processing access to information requests, a service which is not part of the Trusts NHS statutory responsibilities but is a requirement for all organisation under the Data Protection Act 1998. I'm sure you can view the details of the Act along with any schedules online through Google or similar search engine. ( ie f--- you we wont provide them but we will charge you the maximum £50 just to be awkward)
The details on my out of office reply were not intended for you specifically. Most of my contact is with GP practices who user the Open Exeter system and would need to be able to contact the Exeter help desk in my absence. It referred to help with passwords and logging in. As you do not have a password to this system it should have been obvious ( right , patients must be psychic now ) that the information was not intended for your use;
But if you found it confusing or misleading I apologise. Should you come across this message in future you will know to disregard it.
( i.e f.... you as Lewisham PCT's Information Officer I have every right to confuse patients , expect them to be psychic and wish them Happy Christmas in late July without having to face the indignity of being politely asked to update and correct my automated response by a mere patient)
I am the data controller for the Exeter database for Lewisham PCT. I am not aware that you have managed to gain access to the database using the information supplied on my e-mail out of office notice, no patient identifiable details were should non the notice, therefore no breach has occurred.
( whatever point the Information Officer was trying to make here these personal details are only being generated because she isnt managing her responses properly. Patients dont need to know about her Exeter role, its confusing )
In terms of your personal information being held on the Exeter system. All registration details for patients registered with a doctor are held on a central database which is populated using information received from GP practices. It is used to assist the provision of high quality health care to the Trusts resident population, and for the payment of doctors for services provided.
( more unnecessary noise generated by incompetence )
I understand you have been in communication with Lewisham PCT's Complaints Department and that this dialogue is on going. I would request there for that all future correspondence be directed to the Complaints Department who will be able to co-ordinate responses appropriately.
( i.e f--- you how dare you constructively suggest I do my job more professionally and actually state I am Lewisham PCT's Information Officer in my garbled responses to patients )
I would have taken this up with the Information Commissioner but whats the point?
The NHS culture of arrogance and bullying is alive and well within Lewisham PCT .
This is Fair Comment
10-Feb-2010 4:51 pm
Bullying is riff in the NHS, and will be if the Managers are allowed to get away with treating there staff like they want.
Lets face it the managers have to be seen to be doing something for there very well payed jobs so whats the easy way to get ahead, yes Bully the staff. But only the ones who need there jobs and can not fight back. Or who have just given in to the managers time and time again the easy option.
The staff will gang up on the one or two that are getting bullied are no one will help.
Personal are useless and in fact the main course off the bullying.
The problem starts at the top and works it way down the management, It needs to be stamped out and thats where they need to start.
Anyone being bullied must talk to a union rep and when i say union i meen a union not one that is in with the nurse managers.
If you are getting bullied by a manager you don't need a manager or sister to rep as union rep.
23-Mar-2010 11:37 pm
I have recently left a job in CAMHS due to being bullied by my managers- since the arrival of one manager last year she has gathered around her a coven of 'lackeys' who she appears to control and have under her thumb- I found out last week that she is still bullying the nurses and junior OT there and everybody is looking for new jobs. My counsellor told me I am suffering from PTSD as a result of her behaviour- I lost my mum in July of last year- at the same time as this my husband was made redundant and my daughter was ill- I was also taking care of my dad and helping him through his grief- and I received no support from work- supervision was soparse and I was told to just 'get on with' things even when i told them i couldn't handle a couple of the patients because of my own bereavement.
I took some time off but when I tried to return I was taken into what was supposed to be a return to work interview but turned out to be a meeting with the bullying manager who sat and attacked my performance and instead of helping me improve told me that formal performance management procedures were going to be enforced , then she had a go at me for talking to my colleague and for some rumours she had heard (that were not true) about something I was alleged to have said about her!
They have not taken into account my bereavement and my ill-health as a result of it and should have supported me through the sickness absence policy- instead she went straight to performance management and I am now leaving my job because of the way i have been treated.
Speaking to my counsellor and the union about it we have figured out that I was targetted at an obviously vulnerable time because I was a threat- I used to be a manager and I was supportive of the other nurses in their dealings with her and her lackeys- so she saw the opportunity and went for it.
On Friday I popped into work and took home some personalbelongings while I knew she or any other manager was not there - now I received a letter today saying she has heard about this and has heard that I am handing in my notice- surely I haven't done anything wrong by picking up some personal belongings that i wanted to make sure were safe and by talking to colleagues about leaving? It is not her business until I inform her officially is it? or have I done something wrong- she has undermined my confidence so much I am now second-guessing myself all the time. :(
13-Oct-2010 4:52 pm
I think exposing bullies is the only way forward left now. Not without producing proper evidence - just because we have suffered from bullying doesn't mean we can justify descending to that level ourselves. We have to be fair to managers because sometimes staff can get it wrong too. But all the antibullying systems so far have never been able to prevent human cruelty and management ruthlessness.
I suffered bullying and isolation for more than two years in my last NHS post and have finally left the NHS after a career of more than 25 years. It took me more than a year to recover my confidence and wellbeing, but I did.
This doesn't mean that I feel unscathed. I remain worried for colleagues who couldn't get other work and have to tolerate some incredible behaviour by senior managers who seem to operate with impunity. I am still so concerned for patients in my former PCT, where services have been reduced to what I consider to be an unsafe level. If my professional opinion and the concerns I raised counted for nothing then, why should anyone listen to me now?
