Department of Health

Website of the Department of Health

Please note that this website has a UK government access keys system.

Bullying of staff within the NHS

  • Last modified date:
    6 March 2008

Response to a request for:

 'Please disclose copies of all unpublished material relating to bullying of staff within the NHS. This should include but is not limited to copies of any reports and analyses into the extent of bulling in the NHS. Please search for this information since 1 January 2003 to the date you answer this request.'

Response

The Department carried out a detailed trawl of information and identified a report entitled ‘The Business Strategy for Equality and Human Rights in the NHS, Mental Health and Social Care’. The report was commissioned by the Department of Health and prepared by Performance Through Inclusion Ltd, an external equality and diversity company. The report was submitted to the Department in March 2005. Parts of the report contain an analysis of bullying and harassment in the NHS and therefore fall within the scope of the request.

A copy of the relevant extracts of the report are attached and information that falls outside the scope of the request has been redacted.

The Department of Health wishes to make it clear that the report was only ever intended for internal use and has never been published. The report does not represent Government policy and the Department of Health has never endorsed its findings. In fact, we have reservations about the integrity of some of the data used in the report. For example, the estimate of the total cost of bullying and harassment is stated as £325m per annum. However, this figure also includes the cost of bullying of NHS staff by patients and their families and this is not explicit in the report.  

It must also be made clear that the figures contained in the report are not official Government figures and cannot be regarded as such. The only official national data on bullying and harassment is collected by the Healthcare Commission as part of the annual NHS Staff Survey. The Department of Health does not collect any data on the rates or costs of bullying to the NHS. Having said that, we do recognise that tackling bullying and harassment in the NHS must be a priority if we are to make the NHS an employer of choice. That is why there is a significant work programme being taken forward by NHS Employers to help NHS organisations tackle bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Access keys