Bullying, harassment and sexual harassment of hospital staff is a serious matter that requires urgent attention.
In May, nurses at the Royal College of Nursing's (RCN) annual Congress said patients felt they could get away with inappropriate comments or touching. They linked this to the ‘sexy nurses’ stereotype, created in part by the Carry On films, and alleged that hospital bosses dismissed sexual harassment claims as an ‘occupational hazard’ (Taylor, 2019).
Nurses are already in short supply and hospital leaders cannot afford to allow this issue to spread and harm employee wellbeing and performance.
At the RCN Congress, nurses spoke out about the harassment they had suffered. Nikki Williams, a nurse from north-west London, said she was threatened with rape by a patient who said he would be waiting outside for her when she finished work. When she reported the incident, she was told she should expect this type of comment from people in her area of work.
Another nurse, Zeba Arif, said a former colleague was told by the leaders at a mental health trust to ‘grow up’ when she raised concerns about a patient's sexualised comments. Later, that patient followed her colleague and pinned her to the bonnet of her car (Taylor, 2019). Nurses were discouraged from going to the police because the trust's leaders said it would ‘bring the trust into disrepute’.
Besides the effect on the victims themselves, discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment affect the mental and physical wellbeing of all employees and create a dysfunctional team environment. As a result, employee morale, engagement and performance suffer. Alongside the impact on performance, hospitals face growing legal, reputational and financial risks from such allegations.
Hospital leaders need to appreciate the seriousness of this issue and be seen to be taking action. This should begin by enabling their staff to recognise bullying and harassment. Harassment is clearly defined in the Equality Act 2010. Simply put, harassment is behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated, offended, excluded, or undermined.
Harassment is against the law when the unwanted behaviour is related to any protected characteristic, when enduring it is a condition of employment, or when it creates an intimidating, hostile or abusive environment for a person or group. Often harassment is not a one-off incident but a pattern of behaviour. It may include insults, physical assaults or threats, unfair treatment, intimidation, ridicule, spreading malicious rumours or offensive pictures, or someone interfering with a person's work.
Inappropriate behaviour should be defined in the hospital's human resources (HR) or dignity at work policy. Importantly, it is the impact of such behaviour that matters, even if that impact is not intended.
Hospitals also need to enable staff to act in defence of themselves and others. There are several steps employees can take. The first step might be to take informal action, such as having a conversation with the offender to raise a concern (if it is safe to do so) or to speak to the line manager, HR or a trade union representative. If informal steps are insufficient, action should become formal. This might include keeping a written record, and making a formal complaint using the employer's grievance procedure.
Employers and managers have a duty of care towards their employees. Leaders of public bodies have a particular responsibility under the Public Sector Equality Duty 2011 (https://tinyurl.com/yx8rs8b7), which requires them to: ‘eliminate discrimination, harassment, [and] victimisation’.
Unfortunately, while most trusts have policies addressing harassment and sexual harassment between staff, many do not cover patients/families.
To help teams build respectful and productive workplaces, hospitals must collaboratively define shared team values and the desired respectful behaviours for which they are prepared to hold each other mutually accountable. Creating a common understanding of what constitutes respectful behaviour helps to promote the behavioural and cultural changes that need to happen.
The tone needs to be set from the top. Telling someone to ‘grow up’ in response to allegations of sexual harassment is quite simply not acceptable. Beyond the impact on the victims, dysfunctional cultures also affect the ability of hospitals to do their best for patients and the communities they serve.
Hospitals are already struggling with limited resources and they need to act to prevent this issue becoming more widespread and more serious.