Keywords:
Management, Professional issues, Experimental, Audit and standards, Health policy and practice, Safety, Outcomes, Education and training, Workforce
Authors:
M. R. F. Jaring, P. McCoubrie; Bristol/UK
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-3219
Results
27% felt they had experienced ‘persistent bullying or undermining behaviour in the NHS’.
Several centres had no respondents reporting bullying,
but one had a 45% reporting rate.
42% reported bullying going on for over 5 years.
The majority of bullying occurred at work. Fig. 1 shows the demographic breakdown of those reporting being bullied.
42% reported being bullied by an individual,
26% by more than one person,
and 28% by a group. Fig. 2 shows the breakdown of the people acting as bullies within these groups,
the majority being senior consultants (33% of perpetrators were more senior than the respondent).
Fig. 4 shows the gender breakdown people accused of bullying.
The most common experiences were attempts to undermine,
and unjustified criticism.
There were 8 reports of discrimination on the grounds of protected characteristics.
The outcomes of bullying are shown in Table 1 ,
with a selection of free text responses in Fig. 3 .
49% did not report bullying,
fearing this might make things worse or impact on their career.
Even when reported,
the behaviour either continued or recurred in 58% of cases.
84 consultants witnessed bullying of others,
but only 37% reported it.
34% had training in addressing bullying or undermining behaviour.