While the frontline health staff of the pandemic have been publicly lionised as “heroes,” behind hospital doors, they have been diminished and degraded.
On doorsteps, we banged pots and pans, feting our “heroic” NHS, while they were being lambasted and humiliated in wards by power drunk managers.
While tending the sick, our nurses and doctors have become sick themselves, sick to the heart, mentally sick from being bullied and berated.
The health service has suffered a drain of experienced, talented and dedicated men and women, forced to sacrifice the job they once loved, for the sake of their sanity.
This was all supposed to end two years ago when John Sturrock was called into investigate claims by clinicians that hundreds of staff were being bullied in NHS Highland.
The Sturrock report was hard-hitting, declaring “fear could not be the driver” in the NHS and the health secretary welcomed it, vowing a zero-tolerance policy of bullying.
Yet here we are, allegations of bullying are soaring, with NHS Tayside and NHS Highlands amongst the worst.
This week I was sent a copy of a confidential report of a review into the bullying culture of the emergency department of Forth Valley Royal Hospital.
The report should have been in the public domain without having to be “leaked” but the NHS is not known for its transparency.
It made for shocking reading and the review team is to be commended for its candour and diligence. Some praise should go to the Chief Executive Cathie Cowan for having the guts to commission it after unions Unison and the RCN, raised staff allegations that management in NHS Forth Valley “colluded in and condoned” high levels of “bullying and harassment” in the A&E team.
But Cowan has been in charge for three years and she missed red flags of high staff turnover and sickness, suspiciously low rates of “near miss” reports from the ground.
With unions determined for action, there was no sweeping this under the carpet. If ever there was an advert for the power of change through unionsiation, this is it.
The Board was glowing in its self-evaluations when in reality it was out of touch and turning a blind eye to what was going on floors below their comfortable offices.
Nurse leaders looked after their favorites, made life a misery for the rest, ruling wards like their own mini fiefdoms. It all just got way too Mean Girls.
Three consultants left in six months and nurses in their droves, compounding concerns from staff of a lack of experience and skill in the department.
Junior staff said there was “no formal education” and they were left to take on onerous tasks beyond their skill set which placed patients at risk.
Managers and politicians wax lyrical about duty of care to patients but what of the legal rights of its workers to feel safe and valued as they battle though their shift?
The needs of patients and staff are intertwined because when the person treating us is scared, mistakes are made or covered up.
Medical errors must be openly discussed and learned from or patients and staff suffer.
Bullying is a sore which has been festering for years in the NHS and it can’t be blamed on the pandemic. For a prolonged period there has been a pernicious culture of clipboard reign in our hospitals, with targets prioritised over clinical expertise, to the detriment of patient care.
Targets should be reserved for double glazing salesmen, not men and women who are dealing with the delicacy of human life.
Effective treatment and care can’t be evaluated on a spreadsheet. It’s a hospital not a working farm.
The NHS has a sickness but management are not the cure, the frontline staff are and it’s time they were respected, valued
and listened to as the lifesavers they are.
