Coronavirus: NHS nurses told 'lives would be made hell'

Hospital nurses were told their "lives would be made hell" if they complained over conditions on a coronavirus ward, a union has claimed.

Unison has raised a group grievance for 36 employees, most of them nurses, at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. It said staff on the Queen's Medical Centre ward were not trained properly, faced bullying for raising concerns and denied PPE "as punishment".

The trust said the allegations were "very troubling".

The union said the staff, which included nurses, senior nurses and healthcare assistants, volunteered to work on the hospital's only ward dealing with end-of-life coronavirus patients. It claimed they were not given any specialist training or counselling for dealing with dying patients and their grieving relatives.

An anonymous member of staff described it as "incredibly stressful".

Another worker said a board with everyone's record of sickness was put on display in a break room to intimidate staff.

Dave Ratchford from Unison said: "This is absolutely shocking stuff. We're talking about a very high-performing team who fell foul of a culture that permits bullying and fails to address it"

"Staff were told their lives would be made hell for complaining."

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Source: BBC News, 21 July 2020