Kafka Lives: Consideration of Psychological Wellbeing on Staff under Investigation Procedures in the NHS

Abstract

Culture change in the UK National Health Service (NHS) became a national concern following the Francis enquiry (2013) with increasing initiatives to develop models of compassionate management. This call was intended to create an environment to address investigations in the best possible manner creating a nurturing environment for staff and in turn their patients; a truly no-blame culture. Whilst principles of justice and compassionate are intended to underpin staff investigations, our clinical experience at the coal-face in working with Staff under Investigation (SUI) has proved that this is (too often) not the case. SUI often find they have little information about the complaint against them, little communication to clarify and await the outcome in general isolation from organisational or team access, until they are invited to the attend and explain their position. The resultant anxiety and distress mean that they are left traumatised by the investigation procedure itself. This brief paper aims to highlight the avoidable stressors caused by investigation procedures in the UK NHS themselves and aims to highlights aspects of these polices which require greater attention. This in turn would support a beneficial outcome for the investigation procedures overall. Whilst focusing on the UK, the generic processes of investigation have a number of commonalities which allow this information to be applicable to a range of health care services and investigation procedures.