Lord Clark of Windermere
Main Page: Lord Clark of Windermere (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Clark of Windermere's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(5 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty's Government what are the latest figures for bullying in the National Health Service; and what are their plans to reduce the level of such bullying.
My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting NHS organisations in their responsibility to tackle bullying. Some 28.3% of staff responding to the 2018 NHS staff survey experienced bullying from patients, service users or the public, 3.2% from managers and 19.1% from colleagues. Through the NHS Social Partnership Forum’s collective call to action and commitments in the NHS people plan, the Government are working with these arm’s-length bodies, the royal colleges, the NHS national “freedom to speak up” guardian, NHS organisations and health unions to reduce levels of bullying for all staff, and they deserve our thanks for all their work.
I thank the Minister for her Answer. As she indicated, the NHS depends entirely on the commitment and dedication of its staff. It is really appalling that 28% of them experienced bullying and harassment in the last year alone, as she said. Just 12 months ago, her predecessor as Minister told me that over 70,000 members of staff had suffered physical violence in the service, and those figures are three years old. That is indefensible. We need to protect these employees. Will she make it clear that physical attacks will simply not be tolerated? Will she upgrade the service’s register of violent and abusive patients, relatives and friends, and will she confirm that there will be zero tolerance against physical attacks on our NHS staff?
I thank the noble Lord for his Question and I share his outrage. We absolutely must have zero tolerance of violence against any NHS workers, wherever they work within the National Health Service. That is exactly why the Secretary of State made a commitment to the national NHS violence reduction strategy, which was launched on 31 October 2018. It will put in place arrangements to support trusts in their responsibilities to protect staff. The recommendations include improving governance, improving staff training and development, improving the work environment and better use of legislation, including the new Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act, which had its first conviction in November. That is a significant improvement, but we know that improving general morale and the workforce environment are important, which is why we published the people plan this week.