Government Performance Measurement
3:26 pm
Mr Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Labour)
My hon. Friend has a point. One of the results of our rather poor primary education for the less able is that we have not become a very numerate country. Some five years ago, the Moser report revealed, much to our concern, that 50 per cent. of the population did not know what 50 per cent. meant. Poor numeracy is a big problem. If people who are not very numerate are shown a lot of statistics, they cannot assess them—but we will get better at making such assessments because, in time, we will all become more numerate.
The point about bullying is important. One of Britain's great problems is that we have had very poor managers in many spheres. People have perhaps been promoted for the wrong reasons and not because they are good at managing, and some have not been trained for management. I have had a variety of employment experiences and I know the difference between a good and a bad manager. I have seen many bad managers, some of whom were appallingly incompetent, and many of those who were incompetent were the bullies—the ones who felt insecure and bullied their staff to overcome their sense of inadequacy. Such people should not be managers, or if they are poor managers they ought to be retrained.
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sue clark
Posted on 28 Feb 2005 9:16 pm (Report this annotation)
the honurable mr Hopkins has hit the nail on the head. Bullies are incompetant, insecure, inadequate and very dangerous to people that the perceive as a threat to them. ie good at their job, very experienced, knowlegable, popular and proffessional. How do I know this, my friend and I have been bullied out of our jobs by a theatre sister and her deputy because we have a wealth of experience between us and were seen as a constant threat to them. What did H.R. do when we reported them, they sided with management eventually saying we are her to advise management. My friend tried to take her own life and we were both made very ill by the constant bullying. both off work for 61/2 and 71/2 months respectively.
the honourable gentleman seems to have an understanding of what bullying is and we totally aggree that such people should not be managers let alone protected by n.h.s. H.R. We were never gong to win our case against the bullies, the h.r. saw to that.
please tell us what can we do to find closure to this appalling situation we find ourselves in, we feel we have been punished for highlighting the bullying in our area, punished for daring to take a procedure out against 2 managers, punished for being sick, punished by the hospital for not ensuring our workplace is a healthy one for us to work in and punished because at the ages of 48 and 49 we have to try and start to learn in a new area all over again. the n.h.s. like punishing you time and time again. What punishment have our tormentors got. none is the answer and they have just bullied a new person so much she has just left and another is looking for jobs.
we have heard the healthcare commission sometimes investigates hospitals for bullying and harrassment they should investigate many more hospitals as bullying and harrassment is epidemic proportions in the n.h.s. we would say that most people do not leave the n.h.s. because of the money, the money isn't that bad it is the bullying that is found on every ward, every office and every corner of every hospital.
The government is never going to be able to put a stop to this unless very harsh penalties are meted out to offending hospitals.
thank you
fran and sue
2 very unhappy nurses.