LONDON (Reuters), May 22 - One in four National Health Service staff have been bullied or harassed by patients and their families in the last 12 months and the problem is growing, according to a report on Friday.
The British Medical Association report said bullying appeared to be a serious issue in the NHS, with 15 percent of respondents also reporting suffering at the hands of their colleagues.
"The cycle of bullying in medicine has to stop," said Sam Everington, deputy chairman of the BMA which is calling for a "zero tolerance" culture to be implemented.
Junior doctors and medical students reported they often bore the brunt of bullying as part of an "initiation rite" into the profession. A quarter said senior colleagues had bullied them while 16% said they had been picked on by nurses.
"It's not good enough for a senior doctor to think that he or she had a hard time and was humiliated as a medical student so it's justified for them to dole out the same treatment," Everington said.
He added the problem went across the board, although doctors from overseas were particularly vulnerable.
"Consultants can be bullied by peers and by managers. The highly pressurized target ethos in the health service only adds to the survival of the fittest culture where bullying is often seen as a way of motivating staff."
Belittling and undermining work, withholding information, freezing out and removing areas of responsibility without consultation and setting impossible deadlines were cited as the most common forms of bullying or harassment.
An under-reporting of incidents might also mask the extent of bullying within the NHS, Britain's largest employer, the report said.
It added workplace bullying affected up to half the total U.K. workforce, costing employers 80 million pounds in lost working days and 2 million pounds in lost revenue.
Last Updated: 2006-05-19 12:44:28 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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