NHS to rate English trusts on tackling violence and racism towards staff

The NHS will rate trusts according to how well they tackle racism, violence and sexual misconduct towards staff, the government has announced.

From July, all NHS acute, ambulance and mental health trusts in England will be judged and ranked in published league tables on six main measures of wellbeing, affecting more than 1.5 million staff.

All secondary care NHS bodies are affected by the announcement. Primary care, which includes GP practices, is excluded for now, but ministers hope to roll it out there in “future years”.

The new performance standards will rate hospitals and ambulance services on success in tackling racism, preventing violence, improving sexual safety, promoting flexible working, line management, and health and wellbeing support. They will receive a score of one to four for each measure, which will contribute to trusts’ overall ratings.

For the first time, trusts’ progress on workforce wellbeing – assessed via the NHS staff survey – will directly affect their overall performance rating alongside waiting list and A&E metrics.

The minister for secondary care, Karin Smyth, said: “NHS staff are the backbone of our health service, and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

“The levels of racism, violence and sexual harassment reported by staff are completely unacceptable, and for too long there has been no formal accountability for employers to address them.

“These new standards – a 10-year health plan commitment – change that. For the first time, how trusts treat their employees will be measured and published, because we know that when staff are supported, patients get better care.”

According to the latest NHS staff survey, hundreds of thousands of NHS staff have been attacked, harassed, bullied or subject to racism, while nearly one in 10 NHS workers, a third of ambulance staff and more than one in 10 nurses and midwives said they had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in the past year.

A recent investigation by the Guardian found steep rises in levels of violence and sexual misconduct over the past three years.

Experts welcomed the new performance measures but questioned how quickly staff would notice the difference.

Suzie Bailey, the director of leadership and organisational development at the King’s Fund thinktank, said the real test would be whether the standards changed daily working life. “The NHS cannot deliver high-quality care if staff and managers do not feel safe, valued and supported,” she said.

Nicola Ranger, the general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Zero-tolerance policies on paper have done little to improve the day-to-day experience of nursing staff.

“To deliver real change for staff, robust enforcement mechanisms need to be in place for those who fail to deliver against the new standards. If these levels of abuse don’t change, nurses will continue to walk away from our NHS and that would be a tragedy.”

Tim Mitchell, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said a national, independent and anonymous way for NHS staff to report incidents was needed.

“Staff must be able to come forward without fear of retaliation, confident their concerns will be handled impartially and with compassion,” he said.