Female staff at 999 call base ‘hounded for sexual favours’
Women at scandal-hit ambulance trust report ‘boys’ club’ culture of groping and harassment
FEMALE staff were groped and forced to give sexual favours for promotions at a scandal-hit ambulance trust, a report has revealed.
Women at South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (Secamb) told investigators that “sexual predators” within the organisation “groomed” young workers while managers propositioned staff for sex.
The independent study, among the largest undertaken into workplace illtreatment in the NHS, was commissioned following complaints in a staff survey last year, and overseen by Pro- fessor Duncan Lewis, of Plymouth University, a leading researcher into bullying and discrimination.
In a highly critical report published yesterday, researchers said they were shocked by the levels of bullying and sexual harassment within the trust, which is also failing to meet targets for emergency calls.
Investigators were told that “covert and overt” sexualised behaviour was embedded in parts of the management structure, and the authors found that “employees were living in daily fear.”
More than 40 per cent of the 2,000 staff who took part in the inquiry said they had been bullied or harassed within the past 12 months. One in five said the abuse happened on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
The report added: “Female staff talked about sexual favours being sought in return for career progression whilst others were hounded by managers seeking sexual favours for personal reasons. Several female staff felt that such behaviours were the norm, with some stating “my a--- was slapped regularly” and others feeling demeaned by highly sexualised gazing in front of colleagues and even patients.
“Some female respondents talked about ‘sexual predators’ amongst male colleagues who ‘groomed students’ for sexualised ends.”
The report also said a “boys’ club” operated at the trust, which was “stubbornly resistant to change”, and concluded: “Ignorance is no defence, and too many British institutions have demonstrated failure to take matters seriously when it comes to sexual abuse.”
Secamb, which covers Kent, Surrey, Sussex and north-east Hampshire, was put into special measures in September last year after the Care Quality Commission ranked it inadequate.
In February, The Daily Telegraph revealed that the “endemic culture of bullying” had driven two 999 call handlers to attempt suicide.
Paul Sutton, head of the trust, resigned last year, as did Tony Thorne, the chairman, after The Daily Telegraph exposed their part in a rogue operation which deliberately delayed responses to 20,000 calls. James Kennedy, chief operating officer, also resigned, soon after an acting chairman took over.
Almost every other executive director on the board has since left their posts amid mounting managerial chaos at the organisation.
Daren Mochrie, Secamb chief executive, who was appointed in April, said: “I am truly disappointed and upset that so many of our staff have experienced bullying and disrespectful behaviour in the workplace. The behaviours it describes are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Jason Dicker, GMB branch secretary in Secamb, said the report “underpins GMB’S evidence continually provided by their membership, that Secamb’s workplace has been a breeding ground for a bullying and harassment culture. (We) demand that this report elicits detailed internal investigations.”