Hospital violence ‘going through the roof’, says CEO

A London acute trust is planning to provide staff working in frailty units with body cameras and those in antenatal clinics with additional security, as violence and aggression against them goes ‘through the roof’.

Matthew Trainer, chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust in north east London, described the measures the trust is planning to take in response to growing staff concerns about their safety.

Speaking at a King’s Fund event about making NHS careers more attractive, Mr Trainer said: “We need to understand the impact of violence and aggression against the workforce and that’s going through the roof just now.

“Our ultrasound technicians have now asked for help as their antenatal scans are becoming so fraught. We are about to introduce body cameras in our frailty wards to help with the increase in violence and aggression against staff there.”

Mr Trainer – who joined BHRUT in 2021 from Oxleas Foundation Trust – said a long-running problem with violence and aggression in emergency departments was spreading to other departments.

Mr Trainer stressed the main problem, particularly in frailty units, was not patients’ own behaviour, but that of family and friends visiting them.

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Source: HSJ, 13 December 2023