The NHS Staff Survey results are out, but bullying and harassment hasn’t shifted, so what next?
The 2021 NHS Staff Survey found that nationally around 18% of employees have experienced harassment or bullying by a manager or colleague. That’s 18% of over 600,000 survey respondents which roughly equals 108,000 employees! 108,000 people within the same organisation experiencing completely unacceptable behaviour. Another alarming point about this is that statistic has stayed at around 18% in the last 4 years of NHS Staff Surveys. And not to forget that 18% only takes into account those who disclosed it in the Survey, which in our experience is only ever the tip of the iceberg, many more people stay silent about their experiences.
It’s one thing to uncover the problem, but the real challenge is finding effective ways to tackle these issues within the NHS. And what’s clear is although undoubtedly many people are doing great work to try to change this statistic – nothing has worked well enough to shift the dial so far.
In this webinar, we’ve pulled together a great panel of experts with a proven track record of handling these issues head-on. They’ll be sharing thoughts and advice from their many years of experience in improving culture and preventing harassment of all kinds. In this one hour webinar, we will be discussing the results of the recent survey, and how to make effective decisions to break the Survey cycle and better the lives of NHS workers for decades to come.
Our Speakers:
Juliana is Head of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion; Healthcare Quality Improvement and Transformation Specialist and Director at Black Leaders in Healthcare. Juliana has worked in various strategic roles including Population Health & Financial Strategy Manager at North East London NHS Clinical Commissioning Group; Improvement and Change Management Specialist at one of the largest NHS Trusts in England; and Operational Manager at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) during the 2021 Census. Women in the NHS e-magazine recently published Juliana’s first op-ed about the impact of discrimination experienced by NHS staff. She has a wide range of experience in managing large scale projects with a keen interest in reducing health inequalities nationally.
Paul Deemer is Head of Diversity and Inclusion at NHS Employers. Paul has nearly 30 years of experience working at NHS Employers. Through his work, he supports employers to go beyond legislation and make the NHS an exemplar in terms of equality, diversity and human rights in the workplace. He is committed to supporting and promoting good human resource practice in an ethical and values-based way.
Karen Pearce, Head of Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (People) at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. With a background in HR Management Karen’s focus has always been ‘people’ – a key asset of the NHS. More recently Karen has become increasingly involved within the equality and diversity agenda supporting the Trust to develop and deliver its legal and ethical objectives, using national frameworks including, EDS2, the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index, WRES, WDES, and Disability Confident to benchmark and measure progress. Her passion and dedication have helped influence positive change across many diverse work-streams. Her ambition is for Newcastle Hospitals to be at the forefront of the equality and inclusion agenda.
Dr Leanne Armitage, FY2 Junior doctor and co-founder of The Armitage Foundation charity – which exists to increase diversity across UK medical schools. As a result of the work she has been doing through The Armitage Foundation, she was awarded the 2018 UK Queen’s Young Leaders award by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Leanne has also featured in the 2021 edition of the Future Leader’s Magazine as number 4 out of 150 of the UK’s most outstanding African-Caribbean students and new graduates. In 2020 she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice and has featured on several news channels including Channel 4 News, ITV News, BBC Radio, the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard.
What we're reading
Latest insights from the front lines of workplace culture.
The Junior-Senior Speak-Up Divide: What the Data Reveals About Hierarchy and Silence
Speaking up about workplace misconduct shouldn’t depend on where someone sits in the organisational chart. But as shown in The Culture Shifters Annual Report 26/27, it does. Junior employees are twice as likely as senior leaders to believe that speaking up is "pointless," with 54% holding this view compared to just 27% of senior leaders.
Why Collecting Misconduct Data Isn't Enough to Meet the New All Reasonable Steps Duty
Our co-founder and CEO, Gemma McCall, has written a piece for The HR Director exploring one of the most persistent gaps in workplace misconduct management: the space between collecting data and actually using it.
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The NDA Ban Under the Employment Rights Act: What It Means for HR
When you can no longer buy silence, you have to invest in safety. That's the shift HR teams now need to plan for. Some organisations have historically leaned on settlement agreements and non-disclosure agreements to resolve harassment complaints quietly, keeping the details contained and the reputational risk low. The Employment Rights Act 2025 closes that option down. Once the NDA ban comes into force, a culture of silence stops being something the law will let you enforce.
Feeling inspired?
Take the first step toward preventative misconduct management with a demo of our Report + Support™ platform. We can show you how to breakdown reporting barriers with anonymous 2-way messaging, and how to act before things escalate with name-matching and pattern-spotting across our analytics dashboard.
