Sue Frith, deputy head of the NHS Security Management Service (NHS SMS), explains the organisation’s important role in advising, and supporting, security staff at NHS hospitals in dealing with incidents ranging from verbal abuse to serious violence and aggression.
Arguing that security in the NHS is “everyone’s business”, she explains both a range of processes and initiatives already in place to safeguard people and assets, and discusses recent developments, such as a new incident reporting website, designed to help keep patients, staff, visitors, and property, at healthcare facilities safe and secure.
The UK’s largest employer, the NHS, is an immense organisation with over a million staff, more than 15,800 sites, and vast numbers of patients and visitors daily. Everyone who works in and uses these facilities expects them to be safe and secure, as well as providing large-scale public access. These dual requirements – security and accessibility – present a number of challenges. The safety of staff, patients, and visitors, is essential to the delivery of high quality care, but the circumstances in which people attend healthcare facilities can sometimes jeopardise this. In accident and emergency departments, for example, emotions are often running high, and drugs and alcohol are particular problems. In addition to providing care and support, NHS staff often have to deal with emotionally charged situations; they may have to calm distressed patients, relatives and friends, or manage individuals not in control of their behaviour or actions due to their medical condition. Often in these situations, individuals’ behaviour can escalate into incidents of violence and aggression.
The size of the challenge
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