One in five NHS Lothian chiefs reports being bullied at work

Published on Thursday 4 June 2009 09:35

MORE than a fifth of NHS Lothian's senior managers say they have been bullied at work in the past year.

The health board's recent staff survey has shown that despite their seniority they are more likely to have reported bullying than almost any other staff.

There were 139 responses from the organisation's senior management, thought to be around a third of the workforce, with around 30 complaining of bullying.

Health chiefs vowed to put measures in place to improve the statistics, and union officials said pressure came from the top and that more had to be done to stamp it out at all levels.

Tom Waterson, Unison's Lothian branch chairman, said: "It begins with the Scottish Government, who set targets for the board, and this eventually lands at the feet of senior management, who are under real pressure to deliver these. If these aren't met, it goes back up the chain and the senior guys get a kicking from NHS Scotland."

The document presented to NHS Lothian board members also showed that workers of Pakistani and African origin stood a "far higher" chance of being discriminated against. Staff with disabilities also experienced more bullying incidents.

However, most senior managers said they had received a recent performance review and said there were good opportunities to progress their own skills.

They were also largely confident that their ideas would be listened to by their own bosses.

Norman Provan, the associate director for employment relations at the Edinburgh-based Royal College of Nursing, said: "Bullying and harassment should not be tolerated under any circumstances. Nurses – many of whom are managers – are trained to deal with stressful situations as part of their working day, but it is unacceptable that so many are placed under further pressure because of intimidation from their managers or colleagues.

"There has been little improvement in the number of staff being bullied or harassed within NHS Scotland since 2006.

"Even more worrying is the fact that 24 per cent of staff did not report incidents of this kind because they thought nothing would happen as a result."

NHS Lothian's director of human resources and organisational development, Alan Boyter, said: "Drilling down into the detail of responses will provide the information that will be used to develop proactive solutions to staff issues."