More
than six in 10 care professionals in the NHS have witnessed bullying in the
workplace and one in 10 now suffer similar symptoms to post-traumatic stress
disorder, research finds.
A
nationwide study shows that over the last two years, 68 per cent of NHS
healthcare staff had observed bullying taking place in the course of their
work.
The
research, presented to the British Association for Counselling and
Psychotherapy, also reveals that 40 per cent of the 165 individuals surveyed
had been bullied themselves.
Chartered
psychologist Noreen Tehrani, who conducted the research, said it was possible
that care professionals were more vulnerable than others or were more likely to
identify bad behaviour as bullying.
Marie
Cleary, HR manager at Poole Hospitals NHS Trust, said the pro-active response
to bullying in the NHS was leading to a rise in the number of reported cases.
"It
is an area all NHS trusts are looking at and is very high on the agenda. We
needed to find out what was happening so we knew numbers would rise slightly
but that will eventually level out," she said.
She
explained that her trust has introduced more training in the area and encloses
a leaflet with every pay packet to encourage staff to start reporting bullying
and harassment.
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"We
have been pro-active active about this and any report gets immediate HR
support. In our experience, we have not identified a particular staff group
that is more susceptible to bullying."
