NHS

Can Bullying Build Trust?

Or in the case of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust is it destroying the Trust? The recent report from The Good Governance Institute (GGI) on this NHS Trust concluded:

  • The Dignity at Work Policy is not fit for purpose
  • There are inconsistent and confusing approaches within the trust in regard to managing concerns raised by staff
  • The trust has divergent views among different teams as to what constitutes bullying and harassment
  • The trust needs to take stock of how its leadership and management culture operates

WHAT???

However the GGI tried to present their conclusions, it doesn’t matter to me how they are prettied-up. It sounds as if there is far too much bullying. Any bullying is far too much. This is a failure of leadership and management. When the entire team of five A&E consultants resigned from Redditch Hospital in February 2015 amid claims of a “bullying culture” and breakdown of trust in management something is very, very wrong.

The word trust that figures prominently in this case is the key. No amount of policy re-writing and issuing will change the situation if the management behave in a way that does not build trust. That surely starts with actually respecting people. If you cannot respect others you need to be asking yourself some very searching questions and perhaps you should reconsider managing people at all until you can respect them.