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‘Climate of fear’ faces staff who voice bullying concerns at major trust
A major trust’s Freedom To Speak Up Guardian has warned that a failure to address staff concerns about alleged bullying and long-standing ‘dysfunctional behaviours’ is damaging confidence and resulting in the loss of high-quality staff.
Professor Julian Bion, presenting a half-yearly report to University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust’s board, revealed that the majority of the 41 reports to the FTSU service between April and October this year had expressed a “fear of detriment” when raising concerns.
Just under half (44%) of 34 concerns raised by the contacts related to “problematic attitudes and behaviours”, ranging from reports of micro-aggressions to overt bullying.
Professor Bion, UHB’s FTSU guardian since 2019, told HSJ such concerns are always “complex and sensitive issues” and recognised that the trust is handling them during “difficult circumstances” for the NHS. UHB has seen very large numbers of covid patients throughout much of the pandemic.
But he warned the board that several “common themes” were emerging in UHB’s complaints process – including a fear of detriment, “problematic” delays to cases being resolved, and a lack of response from divisional departments.
Suggesting there is a “disinclination” within the trust to address concerns, he said: “Very often, these dysfunctional behaviours are known about for a long time but they haven’t been addressed.”
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Source: HSJ, 2 November 2021