NHS: Discrimination
(asked on 29th March 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department holds on the number and proportion of NHS staff reporting (a) bullying, (b) harassment and (c) discrimination in each NHS provider trust in the last five years; and what steps he is taking to tackle (i) bullying, (ii) harassment and (iii) discrimination.
NHS England does not currently have a national mechanism to capture data on the number of National Health Service staff who report bullying, harassment and discrimination; this is held at local level. NHS England also does not hold data on cases challenged in Employment tribunals.
The underlying statutory duty to ensure staff are safe and protected under health and safety law rests with the employer, and we are committed to supporting trusts and systems to fulfil that duty. However, there are questions related to these topics within the NHS annual national staff survey, which is self-reported data for around 636,000 staff. This data is publicly available for all trusts at the following link:
The NHS People Plan and People Promise set a vision that places a compassionate and inclusive culture at the heart of the NHS and emphasise that all NHS employees and employers are responsible for tackling bullying and harassment. NHS England have developed an NHS Civility and Respect programme which aims to tackle bullying and harassment in the NHS and to create positive workplace cultures of civility and respect which will improve staff experience, and ultimately patient care outcomes.