PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Majority of NHS Trusts do not offer training to prevent sexual harassment, study finds

2023-05-05
(Press-News.org) Failure to implement active bystander training could thwart NHS attempts to tackle sexual harassment, say researchers at the University of Cambridge.

An analysis of data from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests found that fewer than one in five NHS Trusts in England provided active bystander training to address workplace harassment, sexual harassment and other forms of unacceptable behaviour like bullying and racism.

It found of those that did – the majority of which were in London – most did not deliver content specific to sexual misconduct and participation was voluntary.

Since 2017, when the #MeToo movement gained momentum around the world, sexual harassment in medicine has been recognised as both pervasive and harmful. This form of harassment – which includes a range of verbal, online and physical acts, ranging from poor taste jokes to unwanted touching to rape – can have a major impact on the individuals it affects and on the healthcare workforce itself.

In 2019, a survey by UNISON found that 8% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment while at work during the last 12 months, with more than half (54%) of these acts being perpetrated by co-workers.

Active bystander training encourages individuals to recognise and respond to poor behaviour, by equipping people with skills to intervene. Workshops and training programmes typically involve role-playing, case studies, and group participatory discussions.

To assess the extent to which such training programmes are being used within the NHS, researchers from Cambridge Public Health and the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge, submitted FOI requests to 213 NHS Trusts across England in December 2021. Their analysis is published today in JRSM Open.

Of the 199 Trusts (93%) that responded, only 35 offered active bystander training. Just five of the Trusts said their training addressed sexual harassment in some form, with the remaining 30 Trusts saying their training taught participants to challenge antisocial behaviour only in a general context. Only one Trust delivered content that specifically tackled sexual harassment in the workplace as its focus.

The majority of the Trusts that offered active bystander training were in London – 22 out of the 35. But even 14 of London’s NHS Trusts offered no training, despite the training being paid for by NHS England, not individual Trusts.

Among the 164 Trusts not offering active bystander training, only 23 Trusts had plans to implement it in the future. One Trust stated that they were actively developing plans to develop sexual safety training that will incorporate active bystander training. Several Trusts suggested they would consider implementing it if there was, to quote one of these Trusts, a “need for this form of training”, while other Trusts suggested implementation would occur if members of staff or working groups within the Trusts’ organisation advocated for it.

Dr Sarah Steele from Cambridge Public Health and Jesus College, Cambridge, said: “The NHS is failing to take advantage of a very effective training tool to address workplace harassment, sexual harassment and other forms of unacceptable behaviour such as bullying and racism. It’s a tool well used by the military, universities and educators, and which even the UN and UK government promotes.

“We found low uptake of active bystander training among NHS Trusts in England, particularly outside of London, and very little of the training that was on offer focused on sexual harassment. This is deeply worrying, given the continued problem of sexual harassment in the healthcare sector.

“Organisations need to encourage active bystander training from the very first days of undergraduate degrees through to the day of retirement. Without this, the problems of sexual harassment will continue to be a problem in the NHS and across wider society.”

Most of the Trusts used training programmes delivered by external companies – 27 out of the 35, with three Trusts not providing data. This meant that the researchers were unable to assess the content or effectiveness of the training programmes as they were commercial in confidence. While outsourcing training is meant to increase competition, the researchers found that one provider dominates.

Dr Ava Robertson, who carried out the research while part of the Population Health Sciences Partnership at the University of Cambridge University, said: “The problem with turning to private providers is that training materials can’t be externally audited, making it extremely difficult to evaluate how effective the programmes are. In some cases, it also meant that attendees of the workshops weren’t allowed to share the toolkits they received with other colleagues, so the knowledge isn’t more widely disseminated.”

The Home Office has been actively promoting active bystander training interventions to reduce sexual harassment and violence against women and girls more widely. Dr Steele, who sat on the campaign advisory group said cross-departmental learning from this campaign would support the Department of Health and Social Care, and the NHS, in thinking about behaviour change interventions amongst healthcare staff.

Reference

Robertson, A, and Steele, S. A cross-sectional survey of English NHS Trusts on their uptake and provision of active bystander training including to address sexual harassment. JRSM Open; 5 May 2023; DOI: 10.1177/20542704231166619

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Only one NHS Trust offers standalone training on sexual harassment intervention, study shows

2023-05-05
Only one NHS Trust offers its staff training focused on how to intervene when they witness sexual harassment at work, according to new research published in JRSM Open. Dr Sarah Steele of the University of Cambridge and Jesus College, Cambridge, and Dr Ava Robertson, received responses from 199 NHS Trusts to their Freedom of Information request. Of those, 35 Trusts offer their staff Active Bystander Training (ABT) but only one of these has a specific module on sexual harassment. While welcomed by the researchers, they note that even that one module is optional for staff and outsourced to a private provider. No staff have yet completed the module. Of the 163 Trusts ...

Mobile phone calls linked with increased risk of high blood pressure

2023-05-05
Sophia Antipolis, 5 May 2023:  Talking on a mobile for 30 minutes or more per week is linked with a 12% increased risk of high blood pressure compared with less than 30 minutes, according to research published today in European Heart Journal – Digital Health, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 “It’s the number of minutes people spend talking on a mobile that matter for heart health, with more minutes meaning greater risk,” said study author Professor Xianhui Qin of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China. “Years of use or employing a hands-free set-up had ...

AI training: A backward cat pic is still a cat pic

2023-05-05
Genes make up only a small fraction of the human genome. Between them are wide sequences of DNA that direct cells when, where, and how much each gene should be used. These biological instruction manuals are known as regulatory motifs. If that sounds complex, well, it is. The instructions for gene regulation are written in a complicated code, and scientists have turned to artificial intelligence to crack it. To learn the rules of DNA regulation, they’re using deep neural networks (DNNs), which excel at finding patterns in large datasets. DNNs are at the core of popular ...

Archaeologists map hidden NT landscape where first Australians lived more than 60,000 years ago

Archaeologists map hidden NT landscape where first Australians lived more than 60,000 years ago
2023-05-05
Scientists at Flinders University have used sub-surface imaging and aerial surveys to see through floodplains in the Red Lily Lagoon area of West Arnhem Land in Northern Australia. These ground-breaking methods showed how this important landscape in the Northern Territory was altered as sea levels rose about 8,000 years ago. Their discovery shows that the ocean had reached this, now inland region, which has important implications for understanding the archaeological record of Madjedbebe—the oldest archaeological site in Australia. The findings also provide a new way to understand ...

A special omega-3 fatty acid lipid will change how we look at the developing and ageing brain, Duke-NUS researchers find

A special omega-3 fatty acid lipid will change how we look at the developing and ageing brain, Duke-NUS researchers find
2023-05-05
SINGAPORE, 5 May 2023 – Scientists from Singapore have demonstrated the critical role played by a special transporter protein in regulating the brain cells that ensure nerves are protected by coverings called myelin sheaths. The findings, reported by researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School and the National University of Singapore in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could help to reduce the damaging impacts of ageing on the brain. An insulating membrane encasing nerves, myelin sheaths facilitate the quick and effective conduction of electrical signals throughout the body’s nervous system. When the myelin sheath gets damaged, nerves may lose their ability ...

Similar but different: Antarctic and Arctic sea ice and their responses to climate change

Similar but different: Antarctic and Arctic sea ice and their responses to climate change
2023-05-05
Results were published on March 29 in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research. Researchers used data from previous publications aiming to answer the question of why the Arctic sea ice is responding much more quickly and obviously than the Antarctic sea ice, which has stayed relatively stable according to the long-term studies monitoring the Antarctic region’s sea ice patterns.   “The differences in responses are explained in terms of geographic, climatic and meteorological differences between the two regions. Arctic sea ice is located in the polar area and encircled by land, while sea ice in the Antarctic ...

Study identifies messages about vaccinating children against COVID-19 that resonate best with vaccine-hesitant parents

2023-05-05
A study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago found that parents with children who were not yet vaccinated against COVID-19 were most likely to vaccinate their child after reading the following hypothetical scenario: You hear from other parents you trust that they have vaccinated their children against COVID-19. Some of them say that they weren’t sure at first about whether the vaccine is safe for kids. But they ended up deciding that it was the best way to fight COVID-19, and the vaccination went fine. ...

Organoids validated as tool for studying fetal intestine development

Organoids validated as tool for studying fetal intestine development
2023-05-04
Developmental biologists have learned a great deal about how the human digestive tract functions through many years of studies involving fish, frogs, and rodents along with detailed explorations of individual human cells. But nothing quite matches the learning that could be achieved from studying actual human organ systems as they form. Yet for obvious reasons, running experiments on growing human fetuses is both unethical and illegal. Now a study led by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s, published online April 18, 2023, in the journal Development, reports that lab-grown tissues called organoids accurately mimic key development stages of the human intestine. “Achieving ...

New free-to-read collection shares research on the Southwest Asian and North African region

2023-05-04
Sage has launched a free-to-read collection of research and other resources that explore the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region. Categories in the collection include: gender role and oppression governments, laws, and policies information and media mental health, healthcare, and medicine protests, conflicts, and war refugees, displaced, and stateless people Readers can access the Southwest Asia and North Africa microsite free for a limited time. END ...

Cleveland Clinic Rare Disease Center recognized as a National Center of Excellence by National Organization for Rare Disorders

2023-05-04
May 4, 2023, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic has been designated a Rare Disease Center of Excellence by the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). The new Cleveland Clinic Center for Rare Diseases is one of 40 U.S. academic medical centers selected to join the first-of-it-kind national network dedicated to diagnosing, treating and researching all rare diseases. The NORD Rare Disease Centers of Excellence program provides a much-needed national infrastructure to help accelerate advancements for rare diseases. The network of medical institutions, led by NORD, is designed to improve rare disease patient care by connecting patients to appropriate specialists regardless of disease ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Tayac receives funding for community engagement project

Parker receives funding for Elementary Education Program Professional Development School (PDS)

Physicists uncork a message in a bottle from another star

Sanders receives funding for project aimed at enabling prostheses for children with lower extremity amputation

Engineers develop solid lubricant to replace toxic materials in farming

Repurposing gemstone polishing waste to create smart cement

Patient-physician messaging by race, ethnicity, insurance type, and preferred language

Unrecognized motor difficulties and developmental coordination disorder in preschool children

Background genetic variants influence clinical features in complex disorders

Smarter battery tech knows whether your EV will make it home

Overactive microRNAs block fat cell development in progeria

Crosswalk confusion: MA drivers flummoxed by pedestrian hybrid beacons, find UMass Amherst researchers

Study shows heart disease mortality disproportionately burdens low-income communities in California

Intracardiac echocardiography recognized as ‘transformative’ imaging modality in new SCAI position statement

Study finds ‘man’s best friend’ slows cellular aging in female veterans

To get representative health data, researchers hand out fitbits

Hiring in high-growth firms: new study explores the timing of organizational changes

Boosting work engagement through a simple smartphone diary

Climate change may create ‘ecological trap’ for species who can’t adapt

Scientists create ChatGPT-like AI model for neuroscience to build one of the most detailed mouse brain maps to date

AI and omics unlock personalized drugs and RNA therapies for heart disease

2023 ocean heatwave ‘unprecedented but not unexpected’

Johns Hopkins researchers develop AI to predict risk of US car crashes

New drug combination offers hope for men with advanced prostate cancer

New discovery finds gene converts insulin-producing cells into blood-sugar boosters

Powerful and precise multi-color lasers now fit on a single chip

Scientists agree chemicals can affect behavior, but industry workers more reluctant about safety testing

DNA nanospring measures cellular motor power

Elsevier Foundation and RIKEN launch “Envisioning Futures” report: paving the way for gender equity and women’s leadership in Japanese research

Researchers discover enlarged areas of the spinal cord in fish, previously found only in four-limbed vertebrates

[Press-News.org] Majority of NHS Trusts do not offer training to prevent sexual harassment, study finds