'Zero tolerance' on NHS abuse

More than a fifth of NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale staff witnessed potentially harmful errors, near misses or incidents in the month before filling in a national survey to rate their work place.

Meanwhile 14% of staff experienced bullying or abuse at work from patients or their relatives over the past 12 months.

Of NHS HMR's 1227 employees, 355 took part in the national survey, of which 2% of staff questioned said they had suffered physical violence from colleagues.

On the plus side, staff rated NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale as one of the top NHS organisations in the country when it comes to support on work life balance, completion of tasks and personal issues, training improving chances of promotion, provision of adequate materials, supplies and equipment to do a job, satisfaction with pay, confidential systems to report concerns, treatment of staff involved in errors/near misses or incidents and violence from members of the public.

Staff felt they were well valued by their work colleagues (90% compared with 88% nationally), agreed that they had an interesting job (83% compared with 81%) and used flexible working options (85% compared with 81%).

Almost five out of 10 said they would recommend NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale as a place to work.

John Pierce, Chairman at NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale said: “We are extremely proud of our staff and support them in the best possible way we can to improve the quality of their working lives.

“We use the results of the staff survey every year to develop plans with staff to improve their experience through the ‘Best Employer’ workstream.

“We aim to provide a safe and friendly work environment for all our staff and operate a zero tolerance policy, encouraging staff to report any abuse or harassment at work from colleagues or patients. We will not tolerate this type of behaviour and have robust procedures in place to deal with these cases.

“We have a comprehensive training programme and regularly report incidents and near misses to the National Patient Safety Agency so we can continually learn from our mistakes. We review the circumstances of all such incidents and take action to prevent them from happening in the future.

“Our workforce is our largest asset and without the considerable contribution and effort from every single person the delivery of effective healthcare services would not be possible.”