56 Stand with me, not by me, be an ally, don’t bystand but upstand

The Women’s Clinician Network (WCN) led a workshop entitled ‘Stand with me, not by me, be an ally, don’t bystand, but UPSTAND’ at SWBH NHS Trust. The aim was to empower colleagues with strategies to change behaviours from bystanding to upstanding in a momentum to change NHS cultures. The NHS staff survey 2020 report 8.4% of staff reporting discrimination at work from managers/colleagues in the last 12 months. This has increased and at its highest level. This workshop was delivered in response to another workshop delivered by the WCN entitled FEARLESS in February 2020 where 60 female clinicians were given strategies for response, courage and reflection in aspects of sexual and verbal abuse and harassment. 47% of female clinicians had experienced either verbal or physical sexual abuse in the workplace from colleagues and this rose to 76% from patients. These environment leads to high sickness rates, underperformance, suboptimal team working and ultimately poor patient care. The WCN appreciated that formal pathways were not working, and thus the next step was to empower colleagues witnessing this behaviour to change from bystanding to upstanding and creating ally’s and a safe culture to call it out. 60% of delegates knew what upstanding was at the start and improved to 100% after the workshop. Only 33% of the delegates felt confident at upstanding at the start and this increased to 70% following the workshop. Only 60% of delegates were aware of the formal pathways of escalation for harassment before the event and this rose to 100%. Pre event 47% of delegates wanted to remove banter from the NHS. This decreased to 15% post event. The workshop received positive feedback and the delegates felt more empowered to upstand and escalate formally should the need arise.