- Conference
- 2004 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 5 January 2004
- Decision
- Carried
Currently violence against NHS staff is high and rising. Nurses are four times more likely than teachers or shop assistants to be the subject of a violent assault at work. During 2002, 115,000 incidents were reported that caused injury and distress to individuals working in the NHS. These involved problems with absence, low morale and retention and recruitment for the NHS as a whole.
Although attention often focusses on attacks on staff in Accident and Emergency Departments, statistics show that community health workers are four times more likely at risk of violence as their hospital based colleagues. Workers in Primary Care Trusts are more exposed to harassment and ambulance staff are more vulnerable to accidents. The most vulnerable group of NHS workers at risk of assault are NHS workers working in mental health and learning disability specialities. With this group of staff there will be on average 37 incidents per 1,000 staff per month.
The NHS Counter-Fraud and Security Management Service plan to roll out a training programme to all frontline NHS staff during 2004 to train staff on how to recognise potentially violent situations and diffuse them. This training programme will be aimed at around 750,000 people out of an NHS workforce of 1.3 million. This training programme will consist of a one day training seminar. UNISON welcomes this programme of training as one of many measures that should be introduced to protect health workers from harassment and violence.
This Conference calls upon the Service Group Executive to ensure UNISON is involved with the planning and implementation of this training which should be delivered in partnership. UNISON has a proven track record of partnership training with, for example, Life Long Learning Advisors and the Return to Learn Programme. This work is likely to be undertaken around the time of the roll out of Agenda for Change and therefore should be delivered in the same way. Staff sides have the expertise and awareness with local workforces and their associated risks and should be involved when this training programme is delivered in their locality. Call on the SGE to continue to push for legislation, which treats any violent attack on a health workers in which the person is deemed capable of understanding their actions in the same manner as an attack on a police officer.