Three more directors depart top team at trust with ‘significant bullying problem’

Tavistock and Portman Foundation Trust’s director of nursing and chief medical officer are departing for ICS roles and its acting HR director is returning to his substantive more junior role, papers prepared for the trust’s May board meeting reveal. A new chief people officer and chief nursing officer are due to join the organisation in the coming weeks.

Recruitment for a new medical director is under way.

It comes after long-serving CEO Paul Jenkins announced he would be retiring in September and chair Paul Burstow revealed he would be stepping down after two terms.

The past year has been tumultuous for the trust, which is home to the national gender identity service, after an external review identified “deep-seated” cultural and governance problems in January.

The same board papers include a report from the organisation’s Freedom to Speak Up Guardian Sarah Stenlake which suggests a major deterioration in employees’ ability to raise concerns.

Featuring scores from the national staff survey, Ms Stenlake revealed the trust had recorded the worst scores in the country for feeling secure in raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice, feeling confident the organisation would address concerns, and feeling safe to speak up.

Staff members had also raised the impact of a publicly reported detriment case on speaking up, the report suggested, adding that in three instances between December 2020 and March 2021, staff indicated they themselves felt “mistreated” due to having spoken up.

Reluctance to speak up ‘highly concerning’

The report also discussed significant concerns about a rise in bullying and harassment allegations.

Separate staff survey data analysed by the FTSUG revealed 14.6 per cent of the organisation reported experiencing some form of bullying or harassment from managers, with people identifying as being from a minority ethnic background reporting “significantly more” incidents compared to white staff.

Just under a third, or 30.8 per cent, of minority ethnic staff said they had experienced bullying or harassment in 2021 compared with 19.9 per cent of white employees – both are above the England average.

Meanwhile, 15.6 per cent of the trust’s overall workforce said they had personally experienced bullying or harassment from other colleagues.

“This combined data indicates that there is a significant problem with bullying and harassment in this trust, which affects worker safety, patient care, and staff retention,” the FTSUG wrote in her report.

Ms Stenlake added: “Additionally, the lack of effective and/or timely resolution and outcome sharing for concerns raised across the trust is leading to people understandably feel[ing] increasingly reluctant to speak up about concerns. This is highly concerning for a range of reasons, including patient safety.”

She asked board members to prioritise interim training for all managers and senior leaders, “given the severity of the current situation”.

The trust employs more than 700 staff and was rated “good” overall by the Care Quality Commission in 2016. However, its gender identity unit was rated “inadequate” following an inspection in October 2020.

NHS England has commissioned an independent review into children and young people’s gender identity services, and an interim report has already raised significant issues.

The past few weeks have seen a series of changes announced at the trust, and chair designate John Lawlor, former CEO of Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear FT, is set to start his role in June.

Previously, leaders have said actions identified in the strategic review will continue to be implemented by the new chair and outgoing chief executive until a new chief executive is appointed.

A trust spokesman said: “The trust board has accepted in full the recommendations of the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.

“We are already taking steps, including training for all staff and a thorough overhaul of our policies for speaking up and raising concerns.”