Complaints of favoritism by family members at King's Mill Hospital '˜being taken seriously'

In a staff survey undertaken by the hospital, a handful of people voiced their concerns that the NHS trust that is responsible for staffing at King’s Mill may give better opportunities to people based on the fact that they already have a member of their family working there.

Listing the key actions from the survey, head of HR Julie Bacon told hospital directors during their monthly meeting that one such isses was nepotism “for which considerations are being made as to how this can best be resolved.”

A spokesman for King’s Mill said the concerns by hospital staff were a small part of the survey’s results, which were mostly positive and included some of the best scores in the country for job satisfaction.

However, the hospital did acknowledge it was vitally important that it used negative answers from the questionnaire to improve.

The spokesman said: “Our board of directors is one of the forums for discussing the areas for improvement suggested by the staff survey.

“Although small in number, there were some comments that raised concerns of favouritism in the most recent survey, and we are taking these seriously.

“As a large local employer, we often employ several members of the same family and have decided to strengthen and re-publicise our policy concerning this.”

One of the steps taken to address the favoritism issue is more inclusive team working.

Mrs Bacon said: “Some high-performing teams have such a strong team culture that they aren’t as inclusive to new people or other teams that need to work with them.

“Consideration is also being made as to how best to support teams to be more inclusive.”

The report also laid plans for staff who were concerned about the trust’s sickness policy in the survey, to prevent staff from feeling under pressure to come into work when they are sick.

The trust’s sickness policy is now being reviewed.

The information comes from the same report that revealed that about a third of Sherwood Forest NHS staff have witnessed potentially harmful errors.

The trust said that the figure of 32 percent in 2017 was in line with the national average for actute trusts, which is 31 percent.

However, the results of the staff survey also show that the trust is one of the best in the country when it comes to staff believing that their role makes a difference to patients, and was the fourth-best acute trust for staff satisfaction.