NHS sets benchmark standards to tackle racism and violence

NHS hospitals and other health service employers are to be made formally accountable for how they treat their staff on a range of key issues, including how they tackle racism, violence and sexual safety.

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The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have published new standards, developed in partnership with NHS trade unions and staff representatives, designed to set a benchmark for how employers manage and support staff in six key areas.

These are: violence prevention and reduction; championing sexual safety; tackling racism; promoting flexible working; line management; and health and wellbeing support.

The move means that, as of this month, NHS trusts in secondary care – including acute hospitals, mental health services, and ambulance trusts – will be required to meet the standards, which will be assessed through a headline metric called ‘the NHS Oversight Framework’.

For line management, for example, the standard will focus on how best to support line managers to deliver on these areas. The health and wellbeing standard, meanwhile, will focus on issues such as the physical environment, rest spaces, and occupational health and wellbeing support.

How well a trust supports its staff in the six areas – assessed via its annual staff survey – will directly affect its overall performance rating, alongside how it is doing on reducing waiting lists and waiting times in A&E, said health minister Karin Smyth.

“The standards set a clear baseline of what NHS staff can expect from their employer, regardless of where they work,” she said.

“Future years will see the standards refined to drive continuous improvement, with plans to look at how the to extend the framework to primary care, including GPs and dentists, and other service types in future,” Smyth added.

The NHS’s most recent staff survey reported an increase in the percentage of staff who said they had personally experienced violence at work from patients, their relatives or other members of the public (14.47%), the DHSC also said.

In response, the Royal College of Nursing has said the new standards must be underpinned by “robust enforcement mechanisms” or else they will become little more than a paper exercise.

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

“The new standards must refocus minds and employers must waste no time in developing concrete action plans in partnership with the RCN and other trade unions to turn things around.

“For far too long, staff have endured sometimes inhumane treatment at work while leaders remain unaware or look the other way. The impact on nursing staff has been profound, and if these levels of abuse don’t change, they will continue to walk away from our NHS and that would be a tragedy,” she added.