Abusive NHS patients to be banned from receiving non-emergency care

Patients who abuse NHS staff will be banned from receiving non-emergency care as new figures show more than one in four NHS staff have experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or members of the public.

The annual survey of more than 560,000 NHS workers found one in seven staff (15%) had experienced physical violence in the last 12 months while 40,000 staff (7.2%) had faced some form of discrimination during 2019 – an increase from 5.8% in 2015.

A total of 13% of staff reported being bullied, harassed or abused by their own manager in the past 12 months and almost a fifth (19%) said they had experienced abuse from colleagues.

The health secretary Matt Hancock has written to staff condemning the abuse and warning assaults on NHS workers will not be tolerated. Under new plans NHS England said that from April NHS hospitals will be able to bar patients who inflict discriminatory or harassing behaviour on staff from receiving non-emergency care. Previously, individual NHS organisations could only refuse services to patients if they were aggressive or violent.

Hospitals will be required to act reasonably and take into account the mental health of the patient or member of the public.

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Source: The Independent, 19 February 2020