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BULLYING IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE - THERE IS NO EXCUSE!


Did you know that in the UK physical abuse and neglect are the two most common forms of abuse suffered by vulnerable adults aged 18 and over?

According to a report published by the Health & Social Care Information Centre 39% of this abuse is suffered from social workers and carers in the persons own home and 36% suffered within care homes. The source of abuse from care workers in this report is a staggering 31%. The number of recognised vulnerable adults in need of care is increasing year on year and sadly the percentages of those being ill-treated is rising just as rapidly.

During 2014 evidence of abuse in care homes was revealed by a whistle blower on Panorama. The care home featured on the programme had been deemed 'excellent' by the CQC yet on watching this program I (like many others) regarded the treatment of these vulnerable adults as dispicable acts of mental and physical bullying. Whilst I appreciate that managing a care home must be a tremendously demanding role, I struggle to understand why top management does not do more to ensure that during the pre-screening process only the ‘appropriate’ workers are selected to gain access to these vulnerable people. Until this happens the actions of individual care workers will continue to tarnish the reputation of the industry and allow innocent people to suffer as a result.

Disciplinary & grievance cases linked to bullying, harassment, or abuse are long winded, time consuming and often expensive once the endless round of meetings have been completed, meticulous documentation has been reviewed and re-reviewed, the team has been unsettled, decisions have been made. In such cases the pressure cooker is often desperate to pop - counselling the victim and answering to their family, investigating the accused and other team members, and management at all levels become worried about their own positions, the cost, and the damage to the brand and future revenues if an incident ‘got out’.

Care homes are often run with small budgets and revenues often rely on longstanding (and sometimes outdated) NHS contracts, so I guess it is no surprise that management find it easier 'turn a blind eye' than tackle abuse in their businesses.

Many years ago, whilst recruiting for a care agency, a frustrated recruiting manager said to me "if only there were a way to see past the interview personality and into a person's real behaviours day to day". For years it has been impossible to predict which of your employees will be cause for concern until it was too late. Care homes have tried to build positive cultures by changing their recruitment & selection policies and by changing their training content, but often the damage is already done by the time care managers and care home owners are made aware of an abusive employee.

Social media and online social networking has changed this situation dramatically in recent years. [Related article: How to identify a bully before you recruit one] It is now possible to go some way towards 'predicting' which of your new recruits have bullying tendencies - before you put them on the payroll, yet the care industry has fallen behind many other industries in this area.

Airports use Online Social Profiling for identifying violent or terrorist tendencies, and financial institutions to protect their clients from leakage of information. Within a vulnerable adult environment it shocks me to think that the care industry is not doing everything in its powers to protect its stakeholders and their brand and revenues - much the same as airports and financial institutions.

The old interview question "What would your friend say about you" is a powerful one if answered truthfully. It looks past the CV and the 'interview hat' and begins to offer insight into a person's day to day relationships and behaviours. [Related article: Online Social Profiling reveals nuggets of truth behind a CV]

The care industry needs carers that are brimming with empathy and patience - but how can you be sure that this is what you are getting in an age where people are trained to 'say what the interviewer wants to hear?'

Recruitment and Selection

The Care Industry (like many others) currently relies on the traditional selection process consisting of application, interview, maybe a work trial and then pre-employment checks including ID & eligibility, employment references, Disclosure Barring Service (CRB), health and medical fitness, and qualifications. In my experience as a recruiter, out of all of these checks only employment references actually offer any insight into how a person will behave in their role day to day. But let's be honest with ourselves - even employment references today are not worth the paper they are written on!

Without visibility of a person's behaviours and the way they conduct themselves, how can a care manager choose the person that will be patient, recognise special needs, and care in the truest form of the word - with compassion and empathy? The truth is that this antiquated recruitment model is no less a gamble than playing the lottery.  

Is there a Solution?

In July 2012 the SP Index opened it’s doors to the Health & Social Care industry. The SP Index is the first Online Social Profiling company in the UK and delivers a pre-employment check that assesses an individual's Online Cognitive Style - or in simple terms, an individual’s day to day behaviours.

The purpose is to flag potential risks to the business and its stakeholders from an individual’s style. In every report there is a section focused towards behavioural risk and this includes publically available online evidence of bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, violence, as well as explicit language, nudity, endorsement of drug use, alcoholism, weapon use and more.

An individual constructs their online identity themselves, they post photos, videos, status, tweets, blogs, and other content on the web for people to read. Our 2 years of research conclusively shows that these online interactions deliver a clear pattern of an individual’s behaviour and in 90% of cases online cognitive style transfers into real life critical behaviours. In other words, if you are a bully on the web, 9 times out of 10 you will be a bully in a real life environment.

A simple pre-employment check which absorbs only 90 seconds of an employers time for each recruit is the best way to gather the insight you need to understand what lies behind the 'interview hat'! This is the closest thing there is to predicting how an employee will engage with colleagues and patients once in your business because the results are based on how that person is engaging with their friends and family every day.

The vast majority of care homes do a pretty fantastic job in looking after their service users, but those care homes which do not pre-screen workers using up to date methods and technology leave some individuals more open to mental and physical bullying, and for this THERE IS NO EXCUSE!