Bullying and discrimination threaten to shape another NHS restructure

NHS restructures are exposing deep-rooted inequalities, as valued staff face exclusion, intimidation, and unfair treatment under the name of change says Roger Kline and Joy Warmington in an HSJ article.

“The need to do things in a hurry”, we are told, is the system’s way of getting around normal recruitment processes, such as senior appointments in NHS England, trusts and elsewhere – especially the “temporary” ones that become permanent.

Across the NHS, we have heard of a significant number of perfectly competent and high-performing staff (especially senior staff) suddenly finding themselves criticised just ahead of the announcement of a restructure. Suspicious? Extremely, especially ahead of restructures where a favoured candidate is earmarked for the role.

A significant number of these staff are threatened with being performance managed and subjected to investigations whose only purpose seems to be to demoralise and make voluntary redundancy seem attractive. Nepotism is hardly a stranger to senior NHS appointments, but the scale of planned redundancies and restructure appears to have acted to normalise this poor practice.

For example, Alice is a very senior manager with impeccable credentials and appraisals, but finds herself in a restructure in which a close friend of her manager is in direct competition when two jobs become one.

Suddenly, she found herself accused of poor performance and is micromanaged and marginalised. She collapsed at work and is off sick.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 16 June 2025

.