Young doctors in West Midlands face bullying, sexism and racism, report reveals

The Medical Academy Annual Report was presented to a University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust board meeting which revealed the data.

The academy is responsible for ensuring resident doctors – the new name given to ‘junior doctors’ – are able to work in a safe learning environment.

A Doctor Wellbeing Group was set up in 2023 to champion wellbeing and run programmes to improve working conditions for them.

A survey conducted in March 2023 raised a number of areas identified as needing improvements. When they were surveyed again in May last year, improvements had been made but there were still concerns.

In May 2024, 47 per cent of resident doctors surveyed said they had experienced bullying or harassment – slightly less than 50 per cent the year before.

Those who experienced sexism or misogyny fell to 22 per cent in 2024, 10 per cent less than the previous year.

But resident doctors who experienced racism rose to 20 per cent in 2024 compared with 16 in 2023.

Other areas needing improvement were residents who were able to take all their annual leave dropped to 73 per cent from 85 per cent the year before.

Residents who receive their rotas with six weeks’ notice fell to 61 per cent in 2024 from 65 per cent.

Improvements had been made in other areas with 71 per cent of resident doctors aware of the Wellbeing Officer support compared with 56 the year before.

Residents who experienced issues with contacting their rota co-ordinator also fell from 62 per cent in 2023 to 41 per cent last year.

Non Executive Director Professor John Atherton said: “There are still some shocking numbers there – about 50 per cent of our trainees report bullying or intimidation, 20 per cent report racism in some form.

“When you go into it, some of that is from seniors and colleagues which is shocking and we need to deal with that.

“But even more is from patients. What are we doing about that? We’re a big, multicultural society and it’s quite shocking to hear that racism is happening from patients. I’m quite surprised at the level we’re seeing.”

Chief Medical Officer Professor Kiran Patel said: “We have a 20 per cent prevalence of sexism and racism and that is worse than most benchmark organisations and that comes from both staff and patients.

“For patients we do have a ‘yellow card’ system in place. We probably don’t issue as many as we should but we are looking at that again. In ED, we do have hostility towards medical and nursing staff.

“In terms and bullying and sexism from medical staff, we’re taking this very seriously.

“We’ve opened medical concerns reporting for trainees anonymously. We are seeing that come through the system.

“There are pockets in certain specialities where we are tackling the cultural reform that needs to happen.”