{"id":276982,"date":"2025-11-22T09:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T09:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/276982\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T09:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T09:26:08","slug":"nhs-emergency-staff-experiencing-bullying-in-cumbria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/276982\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS emergency staff experiencing ‘bullying’ in Cumbria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n North Cumbria Integrated Care directors met at the Cumberland Infirmary<\/a> on Wednesday for their latest board meeting.\n<\/p>\n

\n Directors take key decisions about the direction of the NHS trust, which is responsible for the area’s hospitals and community health services.\n<\/p>\n

\n At their latest public meeting on Wednesday, directors heard an update from the ‘Freedom to Speak-Up’ team on their work over the last quarter.\n<\/p>\n

\n The report was presented by lead Freedom to Speak-Up guardian Jordanne McMullan and gives an insight into the issues North Cumbria NHS staff have raised concerns about.\n<\/p>\n

\n Jordanne McMullan – North Cumbria Integrated Care’s Lead Freedom to Speak-Up Guardian (Image: NCIC)\n<\/p>\n

\n The report revealed that in the second quarter of 2025\/26, 15 members of NCIC staff raised concerns about bullying and harassment.\n<\/p>\n

\n While this was an increase on the eight cases recorded in quarter one, it is a reduction of seven compared to the same period last year.\n<\/p>\n

\n Emergency care departments are a key area of work for the Freedom to Speak-Up team<\/a> as 77 per cent of staff are experiencing bullying and harassment from patients, while 20 per cent are experiencing bullying and harassment from managers or colleagues.\n<\/p>\n

\n The trust’s interim chief executive Trudie Davies believes the data is symptomatic of long waiting times and the pressures staff are facing.\n<\/p>\n

\n She said: “I don’t actually think that we are a society that wants to bully our staff. I think if we triangulated what we’ve heard, people waiting for an extremely long time in A&E become frustrated and worried.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Because they’re not in A&E for a trip out. They’re here because they’re poorly, they’re in pain, they need help, they need care, they need attention and if we make them wait they will get frustrated.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Interim Chief Executive of North Cumbria Integrated Care, Trudie Davies. (Image: Newsquest staff)\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Davies said: “That then impacts on their outcomes and our staff outcome. So it reinforces the need to improve our performance to give our staff and our patients a better experience.\n<\/p>\n

\n “I think we have a responsibility to triangulate and recognise that because I really don’t believe that we have a bullying population. I really believe, they are just not getting the care they deserve because our staff can’t give it to them while they’re so busy.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms McMullan said: “We’ve done drop-in sessions with staff members in A&E and that’s what’s come through, particularly from the reception and admin team.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Davies said: “I think most of us would be frustrated if we were waiting for hours and didn’t know what was going on so it’s our organisational responsibility to help them sort it.”\n<\/p>\n

\n The meeting also heard that the People Committee is set to discuss staff tensions within the trust’s operating theatres teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Cumbria Integrated Care directors met at the Cumberland Infirmary on Wednesday for their latest board meeting. Directors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-276982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}