Bullying and Harassment
Definitions
- Bullying
Bullying is unreasonable behaviour by one individual or group of individuals to another which makes the recipient feel upset, threatened, humiliated or vulnerable thereby undermining their self-confidence and potentially causing them to suffer stress.
Bullying is often derived from hierarchical power relationships or physical strength and can include offensive, abusive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, abuse of power or unfair sanctions. It may undermine a person’s ability to function and can leave them feeling hurt, frightened, angry or powerless.
- Harassment
Harassment is unwanted conduct, often related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating hostile, degrading, humiliating of offensive environment for that individual.
You are specifically protected from harassment because of your age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity status, race, ethnicity or nationality, religious belief or having no belief, sex (male or female) or your sexual orientation; in employment situations, in education, and when accessing public services including health care.
- Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is unwanted or unwelcome words, conduct, or behaviour of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for the recipient. It can include sexual jokes or comments both in person or online, via text or physical contact such as unwelcome sexual advances or touching.
Policies - bullying and harassment
This policy is the Lead Employer's anti-bullying and harassment policy and sets out how a colleague-in-training can raise a concern or a grievance.
You can raise a concern through our resolving workplace issues form.
This policy sets out the process for raising a concern about domestic abuse situations, including those involving members of staff. Please also visit our domestic abuse support page for more guidance and information.
Reporting harassment
If you need to report harrasment and want to first speak to someone about this informally, please visit our sexual harrasment and misconduct page for more details on who to speak to and which policies can support you in raising a concern.
Civility and respect
In its simplest form, civility and respect is about how we treat each other at work. In highly pressurised NHS systems, behaviours of incivility and disrespect can become common place. People report that bullying and harassment is prevalent in the NHS, and this rude and unkind behaviour can have a detrimental impact on staff wellbeing and patient care.
NHS England North West have created a series of 5 video learning scenarios to support colleagues to deal with inappropriate behaviour while in work and prevent these behaviours from escalating.
Please note: the content in this video highlights themes of inappropriate and
bullying behaviours which may trigger emotional reactions.