Female staff groped and forced to give sexual favours for promotions at scandal hit ambulance trust

Female staff were groped and forced to give sexual favours for promotions at a scandal hit ambulance trust, a damning report has revealed. Women at South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (Secamb) told investigators that ‘sexual predators’ within the organisation ‘groomed’ young workers while managers propositioned staff for sex. The independent study, which is the largest ever undertaken into workplace ill-treatment, was commissioned following complaints in a staff survey last year, and overseen by Professor Duncan Lewis, of Plymouth University, a leading researcher into bullying and discrimination.

In a highly critical report published today, researchers said they were ‘shocked’ by levels of bullying and sexual harassment within the trust, which is also failing to meet targets for emergency calls. The authors found that ‘employees were living in daily fear.'

Investigators were told that ‘covert and overt’ sexualised behaviour was embedded in parts of the management structure.

More than 40 per cent of the 2,000 staff who took part in the inquiry said they had been bullied or harassed within the past 12 months. One in five said the abuse happened on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/04/female-staff-groped-forced-give-sexual-favours-promotions-scandal/