Whittington Health launch new campaign to empower staff to report aggressive incidents

Whittington Health NHS Trust has launched a new campaign to encourage staff to speak out and report patients or visitors who act in an aggressive or violent manner.

 

It intends to help create a safer environment for staff and encourage them to have the confidence to report incidents with the assurance that action will be taken when they do.

The campaign is be launched off the back of a new ‘Management of Violence and Aggression policy’ being implemented across Whittington Health.

 

The campaign features a new ‘yellow, orange, red card’ warning system for patients and visitors who repeatedly demonstrate non-criminal but aggressive and abusive behaviour towards staff.

 

These patients or visitors who continue to cause distress to Whittington Health staff will receive a ‘yellow card’ in the form of a formal written warning, so they have the chance to turn their behaviour around before running the risk of police involvement and ‘red card’ sanctions.

In addition to this, Whittington Health’s community-based staff who visit and treat patients in their home are supported with new and discreet safety devices which has an inbuilt GPS and can call the police. They have also had the chance to take part in a series of training sessions featuring actors to empower them to challenge unacceptable behaviour.

The 2021 NHS Staff Survey collected 600,000 responses from 220 NHS trusts and found that 14.3% of NHS staff were reported to have experienced at least one incident of physical violence from patients, service users, relatives or other members of the public in the last 12 months

 

That figure was 12.4% at Whittington Health which is why new action is being taken to reduce that number.

 

Sarah McDonald is a Senior Sister who has worked at Whittington Health’s Emergency Department for six years. She believes violence and aggression towards staff has gotten worse and worse over time.

“The NHS is currently dealing with winter pressures, and this means patients are waiting longer than usual to be seen. Patients and visitors can become quite stressed and anxious, and they take it out on us.

“The verbal abuse is almost worse than the physical abuse because it’s relentless. It’s every day”

In the policy, staff are encouraged to call the police if a patient or visitor is acting in a violent or threatening way. After incidents, the Trust meets with the police for a review and to receive any updates on arrests so that the affected staff can be assured that their complaint has been taken seriously.

 

“The response from the Islington police is great,” says Sarah.

“It is really important for us, as staff, to know that the person responsible is facing the consequences of their actions.

“Recently we had a patient who called me and my colleague the N Word. We contacted the police and they arrested the patient. I was told a few months later the patient was charged, and had to do community service.”

In September 2020, the government announced that it will implement legislation to increase the maximum penalty for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to 2 years’ imprisonment.

 

For managers like Sarah, changes on a legislative level are the step in the right direction to support the wellbeing of NHS staff and to retain people in the profession but she believes all NHS Trusts around the country should have an internal policy and employee support system in place.

 

“We have a lot of support at Whittington Health. We have a lot of employee support services in place and management take every incident very seriously,” Sarah says.

“During the pandemic, my colleague and I were spat on by a patient, and the police arrested the person straight away. It escalated to the Crown Court as the patient denied all the allegations, but it was all recorded on our body cameras. She was found guilty of an assault on an emergency worker.

“My manager was sitting there right beside me during the proceedings for support.

“No member of our staff should ignore verbal abuse or threats of violence,” says Sarah Wilding, Chief Nurse and Director of Allied Health Professionals.

“It’s simply not part of the job.”