Attacks against NHS staff are down, but...

Speaking at the first NHS Security Management Professionals conference yesterday, Health Minister Rosie Winterton revealed a reduction in the number of NHS staff physically assaulted in England.

The statistics, collected by the NHS Security Management Service (NHS SMS), show a fall of 1,690 last year to 58,695. This is a significant achievement particularly as violence and abuse showed a year-on-year increase until 2003 when the NHS SMS was set up. In addition, the number of people prosecuted for assaulting NHS staff in England also increased by 12% in the last year, from 759 to 850.

Whilst the drop in attacks is small these figures prove that the hard work that has been put in over the past three years, particularly by CFSMS and the local LSMS staff at NHS Trust level has been worthwhile. Furthermore it proves that training front line staff to be better prepared and to risk assess is also paying off.

The reporting of verbal assauts though are not yet collated and published and I know this is one of the next steps the NHS are keen to develop on. Anecdotally I have had many lone workers in all industry sectors tell me that verbal abuse tends to go unreported. This tends to be for one of two main reasons:

1. A belief that nothing will be done about it (as there is no evidence)
2. A concern that the worker will open themselves up to comments back, i.e. 'Well he started it, he said ....'

The reporting and alerting of verbal abuse is equally important to capture and measure. Talk to any lone worker who frequently receives verbal abuse and they will tell you that it is equally as damaging to their well being and mind as a physical attack. Just as important is to recognise that more often than not, a physical assulat is preceded by verbal abuse. It stands to reason therefore that if verbal incidents were acted upon then it is more likely that physical assaults will be prevented.

Capturing audio evidence of verbal abuse seems an obvious way of helping workers report an incident. It lessens the need for cumbersome form based reporting methods and clearly captures the actual incident. Often it can be the way in which something is said that effects the worker and not necessarily the words.

I'd like to congratulate the NHS and in particular CFSMS on their work to date. We at Connexion2 look forward to supporting you further to get physical AND verbal assults down to even lower levels.