Avoidable employee harm: Rethinking NHS complaint and disciplinary processes

When Work Hurts

In this episode Dr Paula Redmond speaks with a team of colleagues in Wales about their groundbreaking and award-winning work on avoidable employee harm within NHS complaint and disciplinary processes.

Working at the intersection of psychology, HR, and healthcare quality improvement Benna Waites, Dr Adrian Neal, and Andrew Cooper highlight the wide-ranging psychological and systemic impacts of complaints processes, not only for the staff under investigation and their teams, but also for the managers and HR professionals handling these cases.

They discuss interventions and initiatives designed to reduce harm and promote psychological safety in this arena, with meaningful impact at both operational and policy levels.

This episode shines a light on what it takes to build cultures of care within organisations, where accountability and compassion can coexist — and how clinical psychologists can bring something unique to organisational systems change.

About the speakers:

Benna Waites: Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Joint Professional Lead for Psychology, Counselling and Arts Therapies for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (co-leading around 300 staff). Programme Director for Leading People – a successful in house intensive leadership development programme currently celebrating its 10th year. Seconded part time in the national improvement team in NHS Wales and chaired the national Psychology for Improvement project funded by the Health Foundation’s q Community. Co-founder of http://compassionpractices.net – set up during the pandemic to make compassion practices – a highly structured conversation to support compassion in groups of staff – freely available.

Dr Adrian Neal: Consultant Clinical Psychologist / Head of Employee Wellbeing Service, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

Andrew Cooper: Head of Programmes for Employee Wellbeing, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

Resources

• New book out November 2025: Bristol University Press | Under Investigation - Transforming Disciplinary Practice in the Workplace
• The Avoiding Harm programme by the HPMA – www.hpma.org.uk/avoiding-harm
• Paper on harm to investigators: Understanding the Impact of Employee Investigations on Those Who Lead Them: A Case Study from NHS Wales
• www.compassionpractices.net
• What does it really mean to lead with curiosity, especially in today’s complex health and care systems? | Improvement Cymru

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