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Tackling violence towards staff

Our latest NHS staff survey results were incredibly positive with the highest staff engagement score in the country. However, we have identified some room for improvement in one or two areas of what is a really broad survey looking at many different factors in working lives.

A worrying number of our staff (16 per cent) report experiencing physical violence from patients, relatives and the public. This is above the national average but an improvement on our score last year. In another question 28 per cent of our staff say they have experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives and the public. This is two per cent fewer than the previous year, but still a disturbingly high proportion of our valued employees.

Last year there were 159 reported incidents against staff here at the Trust. Of these 95 were recorded as aggressive behaviour and 64 were physical assaults ranging from scratches or pinches to kicks or being hit. It is really important to stress here that of the 64 physical incidents; only seven were from patients with no underlying medical condition being evident.

A large percentage of incidents are a result of challenging behaviour linked to dementia or mental confusion that may result from a medical condition or treatment. This is the daily reality of life in an acute hospital where our patients are experiencing serious health issues that frequently impact on their behaviour. We are forced to strike a balance between protecting our staff and recognising that the behaviour we are subject to for the most part is in no way deliberate.

There are a number of ways in which we are working to support our staff in managing this issue. We have a specialist team of staff that are trained in control and restraint and breakaway techniques. They can be called upon to help staff with difficult patients. We employ specialist security staff when needed to help us care for particularly challenging patients. We are currently looking at additional supportive options in this area, which may involve creating a specialist, dedicated in-house security team.

As well as providing basic protection we are developing our staff to manage these situations by introducing conflict management training and undertaking investigations of incidents to learn the lessons from them to enhance our approach to this difficult area. We now also run additional training in managing challenging behaviours, with a number of sessions scheduled for September, October and November.

For those patients where there is no underlying medical reason for their violence we will look to work with the patient to manage the unacceptable behaviour and agree what is appropriate and acceptable with them. We have now introduced zero tolerance panels and, should issues be ongoing, we will write to individuals explaining that we may withdraw treatment unless it is an emergency if the behaviour is repeated. We are also reminding all patients in our general information that violence and abusive behaviour will not be tolerated and could result in prosecution.

I hope that with these efforts we will continue to see an improvement in this area and that fewer of our staff will be subject to this frightening and stressful experience at work.

Please do all you can to look after yourselves and your colleagues by finding out about the support and advice available, contact Darren Cooksey to find out more information about training options on ext. 3533.

Best wishes

Steve Dunn

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