Speaking up about Bullying and Harassment in Healthcare: Reflections Following the Introduction of an Innovative “Speak Up” Role in NHS England

Jones, Ann Rosalind; Blake, Joanne; Banks, Carys; Adams, Mary; Kelly, Daniel; Mannion, Russell; Maben, Jill

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60998-6_10

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Given the commonly reported toxic working culture of the NHS [17,27], where lack of support and bullying [38,39,46] are frequent, it is unsurprising that both the participants and stakeholders in the current study felt that support could be improved. Previous researchers have demonstrated the benefits of formalised support such as Balint groups [47] and informal, peer support for junior doctors in particular [48,49].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Recommendations for improving the working conditions and cultures of distressed junior doctors, based on a qualitative study and stakeholder perspectives

Spiers

Kokab

Buszewicz

et al. 2022

BMC Health Serv Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Doctors, including junior doctors, are vulnerable to greater levels of distress and mental health difficulties than the public. This is exacerbated by their working conditions and cultures. While this vulnerability has been known for many years, little action has been taken to protect and support junior doctors working in the NHS. As such, we present a series of recommendations from the perspective of junior doctors and other relevant stakeholders, designed to improve junior doctors’ working conditions and, thus, their mental health. Methods We interviewed 36 junior doctors, asking them for recommendations for improving their working conditions and culture. Additionally, we held an online stakeholder meeting with a variety of healthcare professionals (including junior doctors), undergraduate medical school leads, postgraduate speciality school leads and NHS policymakers where we asked what could be done to improve junior doctors’ working conditions. We combined interview data with notes from the stakeholder discussions to produce this set of recommendations. Results Junior doctor participants and stakeholders made organisational and interpersonal recommendations. Organisational recommendations include the need for more environmental, staff and educational resources as well as changes to rotas. Interpersonal recommendations include changes to communication and recommendations for better support and teamwork. Conclusion We suggest that NHS policymakers, employers and managers consider and hopefully implement the recommendations set out by the study participants and stakeholders as reported in this paper and that the gold standards of practice which are reported here (such as examples of positive learning environments and supportive supervision) are showcased so that others can learn from them.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Stakeholders felt that compassionate leadership and care for the workforce, through supervision, were just as important as providing more doctors. One medical professor felt that the high prevalence of bullying reported in the NHS [38,39] was an indication of how unhappy the workforce is.…”

Section: Would Really Like To See Sort Of the Assessing And Policing ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Recommendations for improving the working conditions and cultures of distressed junior doctors, based on a qualitative study and stakeholder perspectives

Spiers

Kokab

Buszewicz

et al. 2022

BMC Health Serv Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Previous studies have highlighted the complexity of factors that impact the success of behaviour change interventions aimed at improving staff speaking up in hospitals (Umoren et al, 2021;Jones et al, 2020Jones et al, , 2021. Speaking up within healthcare organisations has been defined as a proactive act (Parker et al, 2019) of personal agency enacted by an individual healthcare worker on their own or another worker's behalf (Kim et al, 2020), through the use of written or verbal speech to arrest, deter and disrupt the prevalence of unprofessional behaviour that negatively impacts others within the hospital system (O' Donovan and McAuliffe, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speaking up as an extension of socio-cultural dynamics in hospital settings: a study of staff experiences of speaking up across seven hospitals

Pavithra

Mannion²,

Sunderland

et al. 2022

JHOM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThe study aimed to understand the significance of how employee personhood and the act of speaking up is shaped by factors such as employees' professional status, length of employment within their hospital sites, age, gender and their ongoing exposure to unprofessional behaviours.Design/methodology/approachResponses to a survey by 4,851 staff across seven sites within a hospital network in Australia were analysed to interrogate whether speaking up by hospital employees is influenced by employees' symbolic capital and situated subjecthood (SS). The authors utilised a Bourdieusian lens to interrogate the relationship between the symbolic capital afforded to employees as a function of their professional, personal and psycho-social resources and their self-reported capacity to speak up.FindingsThe findings indicate that employee speaking up behaviours appear to be influenced profoundly by whether they feel empowered or disempowered by ongoing and pre-existing personal and interpersonal factors such as their functional roles, work-based peer and supervisory support and ongoing exposure to discriminatory behaviours.Originality/valueThe findings from this interdisciplinary study provide empirical insights around why culture change interventions within healthcare organisations may be successful in certain contexts for certain staff groups and fail within others.

show abstract

“…1 2 They are a pervasive issue in workplaces throughout global healthcare systems. [2][3][4] The term unprofessional behaviours is a generic one which includes a range of more specific behaviours such as uncivil, transgressive or disruptive behaviours, physical and verbal aggression 5 and bullying. 6 Unprofessional behaviours have been defined as 'a wide spectrum that includes conduct that more subtly interferes with team functioning, such as poor or ambiguous communication, passive aggression, lack of responsiveness, public criticism of colleagues and humour at others' expense'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do acute healthcare staff engage in unprofessional behaviours towards each other and how can these behaviours be reduced? A realist review protocol

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionUnprofessional behaviours encompass many behaviours including bullying, harassment and microaggressions. These behaviours between healthcare staff are problematic; they affect people’s ability to work, to feel psychologically safe at work and speak up and to deliver safe care to patients. Almost a fifth of UK National Health Service staff experience unprofessional behaviours in the workplace, with higher incidence in acute care settings and for staff from minority backgrounds. Existing analyses have investigated the effectiveness of strategies to reduce these behaviours. We seek to go beyond these, to understand the range and causes of such behaviours, their negative effects and how mitigation strategies may work, in which contexts and for whom.Methods and analysisThis study uses a realist review methodology with stakeholder input comprising a number of iterative steps: (1) formulating initial programme theories drawing on informal literature searches and literature already known to the study team, (2) performing systematic and purposive searches for grey and peer-reviewed literature on Embase, CINAHL and MEDLINE databases as well as Google and Google Scholar, (3) selecting appropriate documents while considering rigour and relevance, (4) extracting data, (5) and synthesising and (6) refining the programme theories by testing the theories against the newly identified literature.Ethics and disseminationEthical review is not required as this study is a secondary research. An impact strategy has been developed which includes working closely with key stakeholders throughout the project. Step 7 of our project will develop pragmatic resources for managers and professionals, tailoring contextually-sensitive strategies to reduce unprofessional behaviours, identifying what works for which groups. We will be guided by the ‘Evidence Integration Triangle’ to implement the best strategies to reduce unprofessional behaviours in given contexts. Dissemination will occur through presentation at conferences, innovative methods (cartoons, videos, animations and/or interactive performances) and peer-reviewed journals.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42021255490.

show abstract

Speaking up about Bullying and Harassment in Healthcare: Reflections Following the Introduction of an Innovative “Speak Up” Role in NHS England

Cited by 5 publications

References 36 publications

Recommendations for improving the working conditions and cultures of distressed junior doctors, based on a qualitative study and stakeholder perspectives

Recommendations for improving the working conditions and cultures of distressed junior doctors, based on a qualitative study and stakeholder perspectives

Speaking up as an extension of socio-cultural dynamics in hospital settings: a study of staff experiences of speaking up across seven hospitals

Why do acute healthcare staff engage in unprofessional behaviours towards each other and how can these behaviours be reduced? A realist review protocol

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About