The management of a Scottish NHS trust has been accused of
bullying tactics and creating a blame culture by an independent health
watchdog.
The report by the Scottish Health Advisory Service (SHAS),
called Services for mental health in Lanarkshire, also criticised the
trust’s HR department for failing to adequately handle complaints.
The watchdog claims, “We are very worried about the
management culture experienced by some people in the Lanarkshire services.
Often the terms bullying, threatening and ‘blame culture’ were used and
examples were given to SHAS to illustrate behaviour that frightened staff and
prevented them reporting their concerns about patient care.”
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The report claimed that the HR department had experienced
a number of personnel changes and that this, coupled with very poor funding for
the trust (the second lowest in Scotland), had “radically reduced the HR
service to the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Directorate during the
past year”.
By Colin Wright
