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Table of Contents

Particulars Page Numbers


Introduction 2
Methodology 2
National Health Systems 2-3
Background of NHS 3
NHS and Human Resource 3-4
Harassment and Discrimination 4-5
Leadership 6-7
Staff Engagement 7-9
New Age of NHS Human Resource 9-10
Conclusion 10
References 11-12
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Introduction

Human resource is the main force behind the success of any organization. From the healthcare
system to commercial companies, they are driven power to run the company. Any issue in
human resources should be and must be taken more consciously than anything. In recent times,
the focus on human resources is getting more and more than any other sector because if this
crumbles, none of the bases of the organization will stay up. In previous times, management and
managerial personnel did not pay much attention, and this allowed them to carry away thinking
about the enormous supplies of human resources. However, in recent times, as organizations are
getting more competitive, the standards are also changing. People started speaking about the
inequalities they are finding and working on getting them better than before. NHS is one of the
oldest organizations in the world, but very destructive issues under it still cause it not to go
forward. But, now the situation is changing, more and more people are working to bring change
and actively working to ensure the best working facility for the people.

Methodology

The purpose of this report was to identify the three essential issues and arguments in this report
found in several articles and website posts published. The data found in these articles are
established qualitative and quantitative. All the data information is gathered by surveying the
employees of the NHS and their feedback. However, the statements were also collected by
interviewing employees of the organization, where they shared their opinion. Each of the issues
is attached to one another, which explains why working on one point will relatively improve the
situation of the other problems. All of the information's available online or offline, which
concludes the participant permitted to use them.

National Health System

NHS or National Health Service is a system of the United Kingdom government to fund the
medical care service publicly all over the UK. The taxpayers fund the whole system. Under this
system, there are four other systems known as NHS: NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales,
and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland. The central concept behind this service is to
provide any medical support free of cost (satisfaction, 2022). The budget for all of the NHS is
decided and divided among these four sectors based on their necessities. In terms of free charge,
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NHS provides medical care for all the country's permanent residents. This lucrative free-of-
charge system is the main attraction of the plan (satisfaction, 2022). When NHS was first
introduced, the core reason behind that was to treat illness that was too fatal; however, as time
grows, new treatments and diseases are also getting discovered, creating a joined system of
various health care systems. With the growing development, NHS is now working to combine
primary care, secondary care, mental health, and community medical service. Moreover, all of
these systems are going into the local facility working with locals to provide better support to the
people seeking help.

Background of NHS

NHS was first set up in 1948 by minister of health Aneurin Bevan. NHS provided and still
supports medical emergencies, doctors, nurses, midwives, and dentists. Before NHS, there were
many more health systems where people could pay a small amount to get medical services, but
they were all scattered. NHS not only cured the illness but also reduced infant mortality,
provided vaccination, and higher life expectancy with a lot more employment facilities for many
people (Triggle, 2018). The NHS's budget is growing yearly to offer more facilities and support
to the residents. Many effective health programs were run by the NHS that created awareness
among the people.

NHS and Human Resource

NHS is a massive workplace that includes many sectors of the people. From doctors to nurses to
ambulance drives to hospital staff. With the many locations of the work, the NHS's human
resource is quite significant. People joining and living work is a pervasive thing here. But this
substantial human resource also comes with the issues with this. With constant work pressure,
understaffing is creating extra burdens and stress on the people (Jacobs, 2015). Many of the
employees are not aware of their health risks and their wellness of themselves. Because of the
pandemic, many of the employees are also facing constant pressure on them. Leaving all of these
behinds, NHS employees are at constant risk of getting attacked by many offenders. It is not just
the outsiders that attack the employees (Brunt, 2022). Many employees in NHS get assaulted by
their seniors, juniors, colleagues, or friends. They get harassed all the time. Harassing and
discrimination are among the most brutal incidents in the NHS organization. Without proper
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leadership, none of the issues are resolved, and many employees fear speaking up about their
problems (Jacobs, 2015). With extensive pressure, the work, bullying, not having a good idea
about health and wellbeing, and lack of facilities are all the issues that the employees at NHS are
facing. Among them, Harassment and Discrimination, Leadership, and Staff Engagement are the
most brutal and crucial ones holding back the progress of NHS.

Harassment and Discrimination

Among many other effective policies and regulations, harassment and discrimination are still
massive issues in the NHS. However, despite many policies against it, NHS employees still feel
burnout, stressed, harassed, and exploited (Qarni Jawed, 2018). Employees Experiencing
discrimination and harassment pressures many employees to leave the workplace, creating a
shortage. In this 21st century, where employees are not safe in their workplace, discrimination
and harassment by their fellow employees or seniors, or management is a shameful act.

The issue of this can be described more easily by the SWOT analysis given below:

Strength: The strength of this massive issue indicates that it has been caught early. Even though
many employees have shown concern and complained, the budding cost of carrying out any legal
steps stopped. Now, NHS is trying to eliminate any types of these issues shows the strength of
how accurately it will be activated to resolve.

Weakness: NHS is a very effective and year old organization, but the issue of harassment and
discrimination against employees still has its claws on a considerable number.

Opportunities: Solving this issue will show different other organizations can bring change at
any time. This ever-changing system will also create opportunities for many employees to speak
up and share their concerns. Ensuring a healthy workplace will set a record for NHS.

Threats: The enormous red flag in the whole situation is the employees not feeling safe and
thinking about shifting their workplace. If this issue continues, employees will indeed switch
their workplaces.
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Discrimination and harassment are not simple matters that can quickly solve by regulation, but
the change needs to come from more upper-level sectors. The PESTLE analysis draws more light
to it.

Political: In removing discrimination and harassment, political sectors could not do much except
create more awareness. This is because politics is not directly attached to NHS or its activity.

Economic: Economic factors play a significant role in eliminating or cutting down salaries of the
offender, but strong motives have to be appointed here, or else people could misuse it.

Social: The social factors in this issue are to keep them from the people they offended and
pressure them to work for goodwill.

Technology: The technical sector in this issue will allow the employees to express themselves
anonymously and brand the offender employees electronically to stop them from doing anything
in the future.

Legal: The most significant and noteworthy point in this issue is the legal sector. The employees
cannot seek legal help due to the high cost, so mending the problems must be the most priority
(Upraise, 2022).

Environmental: There are not many environmental-related factors in this issue that will get
affected by the changes.

To remove the issues, HR can hire employees in the same ratio so that the number of both types
of employees stays the same. Implementing a strict policy in the organization where everyone
has to go through the same procedure will reduce discrimination and harassment (Upraise, 2022).
Psychological support to the victims and proper leadership will facilitate the organization's
adverse effects, allowing the employees to be more aware of their actions (Bobek, Maček,
Bradler and Horvat, 2018). Leadership will have to play the most critical role in creating a
standard system and handling every complaint with the utmost care while providing training to
the employees (Bobek, Maček, Bradler and Horvat, 2018). Educating all the employees and
making them aware of their rights and policies will bring change. Lastly, educating people, more
strict rules for the employees and effective leadership will minimize the issue in the NHS sector.
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Leadership

The issue of NHS in leadership is not something of a new thing. It has been going on for a very
long amount of time. Even though NHS has taken many leadership strategies and policies
regarding leadership and truth to be told, it got better than the last time. But over time, it
continued to be a massive issue in operating the organizations (KANE, 2022). Leadership and
leaders are essential to any organization; without effective leadership, the organization faces
problems. The SWOT analysis will allow us to explore the factors here.

Strength: A strong leader and his leadership are not only essential for organizations, but it drives
the employees in the right direction where achieving success will be higher than usual.

Weakness: As leaders are the driving force of the organization and its employees, having any
weakness will lead to the destruction phase of the organization, and employees will leave the
organization.

Opportunities: NHS is creating more opportunities and expanding the horizon of its activities.
However, proper leadership will allow the organization to succeed more in the new opening
places than in the previous ones.

Threats: Employees at NHS quitting their jobs is one of the significant results caused by not
having effective leadership in the organization. To minimize and reduce this issue, effective
leadership is essential.

PESTLE analysis on this issue will reflect more components to be looked out for, and given
below is the PESTLE analysis.

Political: NHS is not related to politics entirely. However, with effective leadership, it will be
easier to draw more attention to the organization and challenge regulations that may reduce its
effectiveness (Goodwin, 2000).

Economic: Many organizations get destroyed or lose their value when the leaders do not look
after the economic parts of the organization and then use the financial benefit for personal use,
which leads to controversies.
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Social: It is crucial to have proper leadership and influential leaders to lead the organization to
the highest social structures. Leaders are the ones who give push the organization to achieve the
maximum result beneficial to society.

Technology: In terms of leadership, technology helps to determine certain factors of the


employees and bring out the result of certain activities. However, it is not a direct factor in
leadership but indeed a dependent factor.

Legal: The legal portion of the leadership ensures that no concern may create a stir among the
employees and the organization, which is fatal for both parties. Leaders play a middle-man role
in all of these.

Environmental: The world is effectively working towards being eco-friendly while creating
products and services that help to be more plant-based. If a leader is concerned about the changes
and factors that are coming towards, they also need to consider whether they are friendly towards
the environment or not (Goodwin, 2000).

It has been seen that many employees leave their workplace or feel stressed because of the
ineffective leaders and leadership styles which do not give any space to them. To minimize these
issues, the leaders must be more active in building an inter-personal and external relationship to
improve the situation (Goodwin, 2000). Even though traditional leadership and leaders may have
worked in past times, with ever-changing systems, leaders have to change their leadership style
according to the organization and its employees. The leaders must create the right culture and
method that allows the employees to open up more about their problems and issues and share
their thoughts without fear (Jacobs, 2015).

Staff Engagement

Poor leadership is not the only behind employees leave NHS as their workplace and look for
other places to work. Employees are now looking for opportunities where the company or
organization will value their work, ethics, and morale while also creating opportunities for their
health (Picker, 2022). Moreover, the staffing situation and engagement were quite different after
the pandemic, where the employees were looking for more new changes in the workplace.
SWOT analysis will allow us to look into the problems more efficiently.
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Strength: The strength that allowed the organizations to be more effective is that the employees
are now more focused on what they want and how they think they should be treated. If the
organizations cater to the needs of the employees, then they become the most efficient
employees.

Weakness: The weakness of staff engagement in NHS is that work gets sloppy, and the
employees do not feel associated with the work resulting in the issue for the organization.

Opportunities: Staff engagement allows the organization to put more options for new people
who want to join the NHS and work there. This also allows the existing employees to put more
effort into their work.

Threats: The biggest danger of less staff engagement is that with the effect of the pandemic, we
never know when the next pandemic is coming or something big like this, but the demand for
medical employees will always be there. Employees not engaging or associating the work will
lead towards the fail.

Moreover, the challenges and issues on this will be more transparent with the PESTLE analysis
given below.

Political: The political viewpoint on staff engagement can be shifted by the political leaders' and
followers' support. People can grow uninterested, and not focusing on the job can become a big
engagement issue.

Economical: Pandemic and recent economic situation of the world made the employees think
twice about the salary and wages they are getting if they are enough to survive, allowing them to
rethink their jobs.

Social: Society is made up of all the people that live here. However, if a particular group of
people does not feel engaged in their work, it is most likely that the job will be difficult for
others to take on while being responsible.

Technological: Even though technology is taking over many jobs in the medical field, it is not
the primary concern in this issue on why the staff is not engaging with jobs.
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Legal: Staff engagement is directly not involved with staff engagement; it is a part of the whole
segment. However, many employees do not speak up or take any action when they face
discrimination or harassment as it is costly for them to bear.

Environmental: Environment is not a part of this issue regarding employment, but individual
awareness of the ecological matter plays a significant role for the employees and society.

The policies and regulations have to be aligned with encouraging employees to engage in work;
employees have to differ based on the sectors and departments they are working in. The
employees' main focus must be on the employees, where the skilled and new employees will
work together to balance the numbers (Buchan, Charlesworth, Gershlick and Seccombe, 2019).
NHS is working on expanding its working horizon; working with local people will allow them to
blend in and create a trustworthy situation. As the government is failing to get more and more
staff to NHS and the existing employees are also feeling burnout, appointing new employees and
giving less work pressure to the current employees will indeed create a bit of engagement among
the employees and their work (Bailey, 2021).

New Age of NHS Human Resource

It has been found that £2.281 billion per year of taxpayer money is wasted because of the
bullying and harassment caused by employees (Kline and Lewis, 2018). Bullying and harassment
made these such amounts of employees to be absent or not attend work. There is also a gap
between the employees and the leaders, causing the employees to feel left alone without any
support system (Ravalier, McVicar, and Boichat, 2020). These issues are now resulting in a
shortage of employees and staff engagement. Covid-19 shows how many of these issues are
creating obstacles, and if we ever have to face any other pandemic, then it will be a more
significant issue than ever. The good thing is NHS is already working on these as they are
merging and expanding to more horizons. Now is the time to fix these issues.

The leadership is almost getting done by the management when they focus on it, but it still
exists, proven by all the harassment and discrimination. Appointing new local employees to
assist the experience employees while maintaining strict regulation on bullying, harassment, and
bias is expected to get lower than usual. However, educating the employees about their rights,
acts and activities must be done first to get an idea of what to do (Qarni Jawed, 2018). Another
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obstacle in all of these is the legal fees which are much higher for employees to take
responsibility and continue with their charges. Moreover, changes in the NHS are coming
forward, from the upper managerial to lower managerial; the organization is working to bring out
the positivity and cancel the issues entirely.

Conclusion

Changes are coming to all sectors of society and all types of organizations. The management is
working to make the workplace more efficient, effective, and enjoyable for the employees. In the
past, NHS failed to provide better support for its employees and overlooked the issues by
avoiding or not taking proper actions. For the last few years, they have been working to improve
the leadership and leaders of the organization in which the output is outstanding, and this is just
the beginning of many more changes coming towards the organization. With proper regulations
and strict maintenance, it will be a lot easier to mitigate all the issues. Surely solving all of these
will take, and that time is unidentified, but eventually, NHS will get there to achieve this
milestone. Moreover, starting to change these factors will allow the employees to be more
attentive and engaged in their work, leading to a better organization. NHS's activities will
improve if they can give security to their employees so that their engagement can go better and
work much more efficiently to provide better support.
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References

Bailey, S., 2021. NHS staffing: the longest wait of all. BMJ, p.n2723.

Bobek, V., Maček, A., Bradler, S. and Horvat, T., 2018. How to Reduce Discrimination in the
Workplace: The Case of Austria and Taiwan (R.O.C.). Naše gospodarstvo/Our economy, 64(3),
pp.12-22.

Brunt, M., 2022. More than 72,000 assaults on NHS staff took place over four years - but very
few were reported to police, Sky News can reveal. [online] Sky News. Available at:
https://news.sky.com/story/more-than-72-000-assaults-on-nhs-staff-took-place-over-four-years-
but-very-few-were-reported-to-police-sky-news-can-reveal-12601481#:~:text=Exclusive-,More
%20than%2072%2C000%20assaults%20on%20NHS%20staff%20took%20place
%20over,Wales%20responded%20to%20Sky%27s%20questionnaire.

Buchan, J., Charlesworth, A., Gershlick, B. and Seccombe, I., 2019. A critical moment: NHS
staffing trends, retention and attrition. the Health Foundation,.

Goodwin, N., 2000. Leadership and the UK health service. Health Policy, 51(1), pp.49-60.

Jacobs, K., 2015. HR Magazine - Key workforce issues in the NHS: An HRD perspective.
[online] HR Magazine. Available at: https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/features/key-
workforce-issues-in-the-nhs-an-hrd-perspective

KANE, P., 2022. The Great Resignation Is Here, and It's Real. [online] Inc.com. Available at:
https://www.inc.com/phillip-kane/the-great-resignation-is-here-its-real.html

Kline, R. and Lewis, D., 2018. The price of fear: Estimating the financial cost of bullying and
harassment to the NHS in England. Public Money & Management, 39(3), pp.166-174.

Picker, 2022. NHS Staff Survey shows growing concern over staffing levels - Picker. [online]
Picker. Available at: https://picker.org/research_insights/nhs-staff-survey-shows-growing-
concern-over-staffing-levels/
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Qarni Jawed, M., 2018. How Can NHS in the UK address and resolve its Human Resource
Managerial Issues?!. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-
can-nhs-uk-address-resolve-its-human-resource-managerial-jawed/

Ravalier, J., McVicar, A. and Boichat, C., 2020. Work Stress in NHS Employees: A Mixed-
Methods Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(18),
p.6464.

satisfaction, N., 2022. What is the NHS? - Full Fact. [online] Full Fact. Available at:
https://fullfact.org/health/what-is-the-nhs/

Triggle, N., 2018. The history of the NHS in charts. [online] BBC News. Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44560590

Upraise, 2022. Role HR plays in protecting employees from discrimination. [online] UpRaise.
Available at: https://upraise.io/blog/protecting-employees-discrimination/

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