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Found 33 results
  1. News Article
    A senior nurse was struck off over allegations of sexual assault and harassment, after a colleague reported him to a regulator when a hospital refused to refer her case. The colleague, also an NHS nurse, first raised a complaint against Niyi Okegbola with managers at South London and Maudsley NHS Hospital four years ago, alleging he sexually assaulted her on trust premises. But after an 18-month investigation, the colleague, Holly*, was told the case against Mr Okegbola “did not meet the threshold”, and he would be returning to work. She then referred the matter to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which struck off Mr Okegbola after finding 35 different allegations proven against him over actions that were “sexually motivated” toward her and four other staff from 2019 to 2022. The NMC tribunal found it was more likely than not that he had touched or attempted to touch the breasts of two people working at the trust. The panel added he had “breached professional boundaries” on numerous occasions and “repeatedly [harassed] more than one colleague over a prolonged period of time”. Speaking for the first time since Mr Okegbola was struck off, Holly has accused the trust of having a “culture of acceptance” and failing to protect female staff. Holly, whose name has been changed, told The Independent: “There is a complete lack of awareness about these things happening in the NHS. It’s very much hidden under the carpet, I felt like they [the trust] didn’t know how to handle this." Read full story Source: The Independent, 5 May 2025
  2. News Article
    An ambulance trust has dismissed “multiple staff” for sexual misconduct offences this year following its “highest year ever for reported sexual safety incidents” in 2024, HSJ has learned. East of England Ambulance Service Trust’s chief executive Neill Moloney wrote to staff to warn them they all have a “moral obligation” to “step up when [they] see inappropriate behaviour”. In the letter, seen by HSJ, Mr Moloney said: “Silence is not neutrality. It is complicity. We all have a moral obligation to support those that experience this behaviour… If you witness or experience inappropriate sexualised behaviour, I am encouraging you to report it.” He added: “Last year alone, 44 sexual safety incidents were reported — our highest year ever for reported sexual misconduct — figures driven in part by higher reporting of incidents. “Already in 2025, we have dismissed multiple staff for sexual misconduct. This includes sexualised conversation and language in ambulances and crew rooms. This is considered sexual misconduct and we need your support to continue to eradicate this.” The trust told HSJ that four people were dismissed for sexual misconduct in 2024, and to date in 2025, a further four people have been dismissed. The concerns follow the results of the NHS Staff Survey published last month, which highlighted the depth of the sexual misconduct problems across the whole ambulance sector, with the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives calling for a “cultural reset”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 April 2025
  3. News Article
    The number of violent assaults, acts of aggression and incidents of abuse against ambulance staff in the UK has risen to the highest on record, according to data health leaders described as “horrendous” and “truly shocking”. There were 22,536 incidents of violence, aggression and abuse directed at paramedics and other ambulance workers in 2024-25, up 15% on the 19,633 in 2023-24, figures from the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) show. It means that each week on average those responding to 999 calls are the victims of 433 attacks, include kicking, punching, slapping, head-butting, spitting, sexual assault and verbal abuse. Senior ambulance officials said they believed the true toll was even higher, with many incidents not reported or recorded. Female paramedics and ambulance workers are the most likely to be targeted by the public. Jason Killens, the AACE chair, said: “These figures are truly shocking and reflect a pattern of increased violence, aggression and abuse directed at hard-working ambulance people who are there to help people in their times of greatest need. “Frontline staff as well as call handlers are affected by this horrendous abuse, and this unacceptable behaviour has a major long-term impact on the health and wellbeing of ambulance people who are simply trying to do their jobs and help save lives.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 April 2025
  4. News Article
    Violence against healthcare workers made national headlines in March after the American Hospital Association warned of an alleged coordinated, multicity terrorist attack on hospitals in the coming weeks. The FBI found that the threat was not credible, but the incident brought violence prevention back to the forefront. Healthcare workers are five times more likely to suffer a workplace violence injury than workers overall. A 2024 study found emergency nurses experienced verbal or physical violence daily, but often chose not to report it. When asked, nurses said they did not report workplace violence incidents for the following reasons: “nothing will change” (24%), “event was not severe enough” (21%), “part of the job” (15%), “electronic reporting system is time-consuming/complicated” (9%), “lack of time” (6%), “don’t know how” (3%) and “lack of leadership support” (3%). Yet just 61.4% of hospitals reported having a workplace violence prevention initiative, according to 2021 data from the AHA, the most recent available. More systems are reacting to the need for better security, with many installing metal detectors, hiring more security personnel and installing cameras, among other measures. In the last year, governments, governing bodies and associations have also started taking more steps to help address workplace violence. Read full story Source: Becker's Clinical Leadership, 14 April 2025
  5. News Article
    A growing number of healthcare workers and patients are demanding immediate legislative action to address rising workplace violence in hospitals, a survey by Black Book Research has found. The survey, which included responses from 240 individuals — emergency department physicians, nurses, hospital-based staff and 200 healthcare consumers — reveals widespread concern over increasing aggression toward medical professionals and overwhelming support for federal intervention. Key findings show that 98% of hospital staff and 93% of healthcare consumers support federal legislation mandating workplace violence prevention measures. All staff respondents said they had experienced or witnessed violence at work, with many expressing dissatisfaction with current safety protocols. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average of 57 healthcare workers are injured daily due to workplace violence, resulting in lost workdays, job reassignment or medical care. Incidents range from verbal threats and physical assaults to chronic aggression, particularly in emergency departments and behavioral health units. “Technology is now a cornerstone of prevention strategies in hospital safety plans,” Doug Brown, founder of Black Book Research, said in the report. “Healthcare IT vendors play a vital role in safeguarding hospital staff by embedding safety-focused features into the software and services used every day.” Read full story Source: Becker's Health IT, 14 April 2025
  6. News Article
    “Cultural transformation” rather than “zero tolerance” is required to overcome widespread sexual harassment by ambulance service staff and patients, according to the person leading national efforts to make improvements. The comments to HSJ from Bron Biddle, the lead for reducing misogyny and improving sexual safety at the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, follow the publication of the 2024 NHS staff survey results. These found 1 in 12 reported unwanted sexual behaviour from colleagues or other staff in the past year – more than double the figure across all sectors and a slight increase on 2023. When reporting unwanted sexual behaviour at work from patients, relatives or the public, the figure totals a huge 29% of ambulance staff nationally — slightly higher than 2023 and massively above the national average for all NHS staff of under 9%. Despite the huge issue, HR specialist Ms Biddle, who has been running a programmme to tackle the problem for several years, said rooting it out required a “reset” of cultural norms, as well as social change. “If we just reinforce things like zero tolerance and stamping it out, we are missing the nuance of why this is happening in the first place,” she told HSJ. “It is easy for us to think of someone as a bad apple, but are they bad apples, or are we complicit in the environment they are operating in? And this is why wider culture transformation is so important if we want to prevent sexualised behaviours in the first place.” It means action taken against perpetrators should be “proportionate” rather than always hard-line, she said, and drew a distinction between predatory and exploitative behaviour, and that exhibited by someone who is capable of adapting their behaviour. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 March 2025
  7. News Article
    The NHS trust that failed to stop the killer behind the Nottingham attacks in June 2023 has been accused of failing other victims. It was a sunny morning in June 2023 as news broke that a major incident had been declared in Nottingham. As the hours went by it emerged three people had been stabbed. Students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar had been walking home from a night out when they were fatally attacked. School caretaker Ian Coates was heading into work when he was killed. When he heard the news, Delvin Marriott, says he knew instinctively that the killer of Barnaby, Grace, and Ian would turn out to be a mental health patient and blames the loss of his brother on the same system that allowed paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane to be out on the streets armed with a knife. In August 2022, Delvin's brother, Rudi Marriott, stabbed his father 75 times in a frenzied attack at home in Nottingham. The family says they had repeatedly called the police and mental health services about Rudi's violence but their warnings were ignored. A recent NHS report found that in the four years before Calocane carried out his attacks there were 15 incidents of patients either under the current care of the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust or who had been discharged perpetrating serious violence towards members of the community. Most of the incidents involved stabbings and three cases resulted in fatalities. Neil Hudgell, a lawyer representing the families, says the public inquiry due to begin into the deaths of the Nottingham attack victims needs to ensure the trust is held accountable for failings. "I think we've seen tragic story after tragic story where patients, their families, and victims have been let down," he says. "We need to get to the bottom of why that happened, who's responsible for that and to have some genuine change." Read full story Source: Sky News, 17 March 2025
  8. News Article
    Discrimination against NHS employees reached its highest level for the second year in a row, while one in seven experienced physical violence from the public, according to the 2024 annual staff survey. Results published for England showed the percentage of staff who had faced discrimination from the public in the past 12 months had risen from 8.5% in 2023 to 9.3% cent in 2024. The figure has reached its highest level since the question was first asked in 2019, when it was 7.2%, and has risen year-on-year post-pandemic. This has also increased among managers, team leaders and colleagues, from 8.4% in 2020 to 9.2% in 2024. More than half of respondents (54%) said the discrimination was due to their ethnic background. Survey results also found 14.4% of staff had faced violence from patients, their relatives or other members of the public in 2024. This figure has increased slightly from 13.9% in 2023 but is below levels seen during covid. More than 774,000 staff in England responded to 2024 survey between September and November 2024, the highest in its 20-year history, at a response rate of 50 per cent. This is up from 707,000 the previous year and 636,000 the edition before, out of a 1.5 million workforce. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 March 2025 Read Patient Safety Learning's response to the NHS Staff Survey
  9. News Article
    NHS staff are more likely than members of the public to perpetrate antisemitic abuse in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries since the October 7 Hamas attacks, according to complaints compiled by an influential charity. The file includes a Jewish doctor being given a hijab as a secret santa present and a patient having pro-Palestine stickers plastered across his room as he lay fighting for his life. Meanwhile, a group of therapists who complained about a colleague posting messages supporting Hamas online were subject to a countercomplaint for “micro-aggressions”. A patient waiting to be discharged from hospital was told: “Get your Jewish ambulance to come and get you.” Dave Rich, policy director at the Community Security Trust, said: “It is essential that hospitals and NHS trusts deal with this trend of rising antisemitism quickly and firmly and set a clear example that anti-Jewish prejudice has no place in the NHS.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 6 March 2025
  10. News Article
    Nearly one in five UK care workers feel unsafe while on shift, according to a new survey highlighting the array of pressures facing the frontline workforce. The stark finding comes as part of a global survey published on the fifth anniversary of Covid being declared a global pandemic, amid warnings from the World Health Organization of a looming shortage of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030. In the report from Uni Global Union, which surveyed more than 11,000 health and social care workers from 63 nations, with 2,132 in the UK including doctors, more than a third reported experiencing or witnessing violence or harassment at work at least monthly. And in what the union described as a global staffing crisis, less than half of those surveyed worldwide believed their career to be sustainable until retirement age. In the UK, where more than 700 care workers were polled, two-thirds said they were frequently too short-staffed to provide a high quality of care to patients, defined in the survey as “when the number of staff is too low compared to the needs of patients”. This included 33% who said this was “always” the case, while just 8% said they were “never” or “rarely” short-staffed. Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 March 2025
  11. News Article
    Mental health patients subjected to abuse on wards do not formally complain as they "do not want to expose themselves to any risk of revenge" from staff, academics say. A study by Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, and the University of Hertfordshire, involving 21 patients and two carers, uncovered more than 750 incidents of violence and coercion by staff, few of which were reported. The researchers suggested social workers should be present on wards, with staff also required to wear body cameras to protect patients. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said staff committing acts of violence should be removed and prosecuted. Claims of violence and coercion allegedly committed by staff included patients being physically restrained, verbally abused, being moved with force and being deliberately ignored. Eight patients told researchers that one or two staff were responsible for abuse against them, while 18 said acts were witnessed by other patients or staff. Only four official complaints were made, according to researchers, with just one upheld. Mr Munt said: "The preoccupation for many patients is that they do not want to expose themselves to any risk of revenge." Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 March 2025
  12. News Article
    Former patients at Scotland's biggest children's psychiatric hospital have spoken out about a culture of cruelty among nursing staff. Patients who were teenagers when they were admitted to Skye House, a specialist NHS unit in Glasgow, told BBC Disclosure some nurses called them "pathetic" and "disgusting" - and even mocked their suicide attempts. "It was almost as if I was getting treated like an animal," one young patient, being treated for anorexia, said. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said it was "incredibly sorry" and has launched two inquiries into the allegations uncovered by the BBC's investigation. Programme-makers spoke to 28 former patients while making BBC Disclosure's Kids on The Psychiatric Ward documentary. One said the 24-bed psychiatric hospital, which sits in the grounds of Glasgow's Stobhill hospital, was like "hell". "I'd say the culture of the nursing team was quite toxic. A lot of them, to be honest, were quite cruel a lot of the time," she added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 February 2025
  13. News Article
    Staff in a children's hospital were caught on CCTV footage abusing patients by dragging them, according to a health watchdog's report. Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors found three cases where children were physically abused by staff at Cygnet Joyce Parker Hospital in Coventry. The report said children told inspectors staff "sometimes bent their wrist" or hurt them by "twisting their knee". The hospital said it continued to "strongly refute" any allegations of abuse and police had ended an investigation into safeguarding cases. The hospital, run by Cygnet Health Care Limited, has changed its use since the inspection and now only provides services to adult male patients. The report, after a CQC visit to the 43-bed mental health unit in July, said inspectors reviewed CCTV footage for three cases of restraint where children were physically abused by staff. "Staff were observed dragging children and young people during these incidents," they said. "For all three incidents reviewed, there was no apparent risk requiring restraint presented by the young person." They added there was no evidence of staff trying to de-escalate the situation before restraining the children.The report said footage identified 12 members of staff as "passive bystanders" who did not raise concerns.Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 January 2025
  14. Content Article
    Staff reports of sexual harassment in the NHS have tripled in the past 5 years, according to a Medscape UK survey on sexual harassment in the workplace. The online survey gathered responses between April and September this year from 689 clinicians, including 452 physicians and 170 nurses. Among the doctors who responded, 9% said they had personally experienced sexual abuse, harassment, or misconduct within the past 3 years, three times the rate reported in Medscape’s last survey in 2019. Almost as many (8%) reported witnessing harassing behaviours by others, double the 2019 proportion of 4%. Those admitting to having been accused of such behaviours remained fairly constant at 1%.
  15. Content Article
    More information about "Safety For All: 2024 conference report"
    This report provides an overview of keynote speeches and panel sessions at the third annual Safety For All Conference at the Royal College of Physicians in London on Tuesday 10 December 2024 The Safety For All campaign is focused on driving improvements in and between healthcare worker safety and patient safety. It seeks to highlight how poor staff safety standards and practice impact adversely on patient safety, and vice versa. The campaign champions the need for a systematic and integrated approach to improve safety for staff and patients across health and social care. Safety For All is jointly coordinated by the Safer Healthcare and Biosafety Network and Patient Safety Learning, supported by Boston Scientific and Stryker. The event was chaired by Professor Rob Galloway, Accident and Emergency Consultant at the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust. It was attended by over 100 members of the healthcare community, including occupational health professionals, patient safety experts, frontline staff, patients and academics. The report includes summaries of the conference’s speeches by: Professor Nicola Ranger, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing Jane Murkin, Deputy Director Safety and Improvement – Nursing Directorate at NHS England. It also provides an overview of the following panel sessions across the day: Protecting lives while protecting the planet. Navigating the many faces of violence in healthcare. Caring for caregivers and patients – Mental health and safety in healthcare. Antimicrobial Resistance – Ensuring patient safety in an era of rising resistance. Implementing the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework. Throughout the speeches and panel discussions that ran across the day, there were several recurring themes: The important role of leadership in improving staff safety and patient safety. This being cited as the key to creating safer organisational cultures, modelling safety behaviours and advocating on behalf of patients and staff. The need for healthcare workers and patients to speak up in order to create a safer healthcare system, and the challenges of empowering staff to do this and organisations to create safety cultures in a system under significant strain. Communication and engagement is key – with staff and patients, and in convening people so they can collaborate for safety. Listening was mentioned throughout as being seen as a luxury, but it is essential to providing person-centred care. The challenge of sharing and spreading patient and staff safety initiatives when healthcare workers don't have time/capacity beyond trying to do the day job.
  16. Content Article
    There has been a lot of commentary recently about the “broken” NHS. One can only imagine how broken it would be if 65% of staff left the NHS because of the verbal abuse they faced at work. Yet this is the reality. Across the country, staff across the NHS are verbally, physically and sexually assaulted every single day. This abuse stays with them when they go home, and when they return to work the next day. The latest campaign at Barts Health NHS Trust reinforces that violence and abuse will not be tolerated in our hospitals by shining a light on some of the names our people have been called. Internally, our campaign encourages staff to report the incidents they experience and to break the normalisation that happens when something becomes routine. Click on the video above to view or watch on YouTube.
  17. News Article
    The proportion of NHS staff who have experienced physical violence from patients has fallen to its lowest levels in five years, according to the latest survey data. New figures showed the percentage of staff reporting at least one incident of physical violence from patients or the public, within the last 12 months, had declined from 15.1 per cent in 2019, down to 13.7 per cent in 2023. That is also almost one percentage point lower than 14.6 per cent in 2022, which is the biggest year-on-year percentage point fall in the five years. The 2023 NHS staff survey, first published in early March, was updated recently to include the questions on physical violence. NHS England said earlier this week it had received a “higher than expected rate of missing data” for the questions, which meant they were not originally reported, but these issues had now been resolved. However, ambulance workers remain disproportionately affected by physical violence compared to other roles, with 27.6 per cent saying they had experienced at least one instance of physical violence from patients or the public in the past year. This is down from 32.5 per cent five years ago in 2019. Acute and community staff were the next highest (13.7 per cent), followed by mental health (13.5 per cent), community (7 per cent), and then acute specialist (5.3 per cent). Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 June 2024
  18. Event
    until
    Although healthcare worker violence ranks high among today's top patient safety concerns, healthcare workers continue to be harmed, and healthcare has been identified as the profession with the highest percentage of nonfatal workplace violence injuries. Over the last few years, a Pennsylvania facility found that assaults on nursing in their acute care organisation were more than double the national rate. In the webinar, Loni Francis, MSN, RN, director of Behavioral Health Services, and Erin Marinchak, MSN, RN, senior director of clinical practice, Reading Hospital, Tower Health, will explain how proactive rounding by internal experts an prevent assaults and how behaviour management plans can reduce physical assaults. Register for the webinar This event takes place at 12:00 EDT and 17:00 BST
  19. News Article
    The head of an association representing Muslim health workers has said it has recorded an increase in racist abuse since the beginning of the far-right riots last week, with “unprecedented” fear among NHS staff. Dr Salman Waqar, the president of the British Islamic Medical Association (Bima), which represents about 7,000 healthcare staff, said health workers had been left in fear and affected personally and professionally. Waqar said: “I’ve seen some really terrible messages, particularly coming out from Belfast and in Greater Manchester, of people having to close up their GP surgery early, of people being trapped in their practices, of people having to take taxis back and forth from work, people not going on home visits, people working remotely from home, there’s too many to mention and to count.” He shared a video and screenshots of text messages from NHS staff, who contacted him about the abuse they had faced in the past week including being called a racial slur and an individual threatening to “kill this Muslim man”. Waqar said: “From our perspective, in terms of our members reporting how fearful they are, reporting how they’re having to think twice about what they do, international colleagues questioning whether or not they have a future in the UK. That is unprecedented, I’ve never seen anything like this before. In terms of the volume, in terms of the strength of feeling, there is no comparison to it.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 August 2024
  20. Event
    until
    Glass Ceilings Change Management is running an Employment Law and Policy Masterclass. The law on sexual harassment at work is changing in October 2024, when employers will be under a new duty to take ‘reasonable steps’ to protect their workforce from sexual harassment. Businesses employing people should be reviewing their systems and policies to ensure they are compliant with the new duties. When the new law comes into effect on 26th October, employers will need to proactively prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. This comprehensive and engaging Masterclass will cover: what the new legislation requires alongside existing legal requirements what “reasonable steps” means and what employers need to put in place the possible consequences of not complying case studies and example scenarios how to update and draft employment policy to comply with the new duty how to put all of this into practice in the real world, not just theory Q&A. By the end of the session, delegates will have a comprehensive understanding of the new duties which they will be able to apply in their workplaces, and a template policy approach to take back to their workplace. Register
  21. News Article
    Vulnerable mental health patients are being traumatised, sexually assaulted and physically harmed in UK hospitals – and have even managed to escape, the safety watchdog has warned in its first major national investigation. The report by the Health Services Safety Investigation Body (HSSIB), launched by former health secretary Steve Barclay after The Independent exposed a series of failings in the sector, warns the government and healthcare leaders that cash starved “oppressive” mental health hospitals are causing harm to patients. Inpatient mental health services across England are failing to keep highly vulnerable patients safe and are even re-traumatising them, according to the HSSIB. It highlights a litany of concerns over safety, much of it driven by national shortages of mental health staff and warns the flagship NHS long-term workforce plan ambitions may be “unattainable”. Other failings highlighted by the safety watchdog include: Short-staffed mental health wards are failing to protect patients from sexual harm as staff also “normalise” sexualised behaviour. Female patients are still regularly housed in mixed-sex wards despite national rules banning this, as hospitals lack funding to change wards. Patients are self-harming, subjected to violence and able to escape as hospitals lack the number of staff to prevent this. Mental health patients are not getting therapeutic care in mental health wards. “Oppressive” and “grim” hospital buildings are re-traumatising patients. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 October 2024
  22. News Article
    A union has accused NHS England of trying to save money at the expense of reducing violence against healthcare staff, as several national initiatives face the axe. Despite growing concern about abuse and violence against staff, HSJ understands: An NHSE-funded pilot scheme to reduce violence against ambulance staff – who are at much higher risk of violence than others – is coming to an end, with no sign of ongoing help; Six other NHSE-funded violence reduction pilot schemes have come to an end or are ending, with the responsibility passing to integrated care boards and providers, and no confirmed future funding; and The NHSE team responsible for violence prevention and reduction has been reduced to just two people. Speaking about the concerns, Unison deputy head of health Alan Lofthouse said: “Cost-saving measures at NHSE have put more responsibility for violence prevention and reduction on providers and ICBs. “But Unison is concerned that resources are just as tight at local and regional levels, and national leadership is really needed.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 November 2024
  23. Content Article
    Leading researcher, developer, and former director of the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES), and prominent author of guidance on race equality in the NHS, Roger Kline, has published a new report: Racist riots and the NHS: What next?  Building on his previous publications, the paper explains how little robust steps were offered to NHS practices during the riots, exposing the persistent failure of NHS leaders to deal with racism in the institution and amongst its leadership. During the riots, health and care workers were targeted physically and on social media. Despite these numerous attacks, Kline underscores the lack of concrete support provided by national bodies during the crisis and the subsequent inaction from leadership to take the necessary steps to respond to the events.  Kline calls out the riots as a ‘jolt to the system’ – but not a one off incident, rather the riots were examples of exceptional crises following years of mounting evidence that more must be done to address racism within Britain and the NHS. 
  24. News Article
    Violence and abuse against paramedics and emergency call handlers is on the rise, with reported cases up by more than a third since 2019, the BBC has found. Almost 45,000 assaults were recorded by ambulance services across England over the last five years, with staff saying they had been punched, kicked, threatened with weapons and subjected to racist, homophobic and religious abuse. Paramedic Nutan Patel-West, 41, said she had been racially abused "multiple times" while on shift and, during one call-out in 2021, narrowly avoided serious injury after a glass ashtray was hurled at her. The government said there was a "zero-tolerance approach to this type of behaviour" and warned that those who assault emergency workers can face up to two years in prison. Mrs Patel-West, who has worked for North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) for more than a decade, said: "I've been verbally abused, racially abused, punched and had a knife drawn on me. "On one job a patient said 'you need to go back to your own country, you're not welcome here' before he threw an ashtray at my head. He missed by inches. "I signed up to this job to help people, not this." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 December 2024
  25. News Article
    A “heroic” model of leadership has meant the NHS hasn’t made enough progress in tackling violence and aggression against staff and promoting sexual safety, a trust chief has said. Sam Higginson, chief executive of Royal Devon University Healthcare Foundation Trust, said NHS leaders “probably haven’t done as much as we could have done in the past” to reduce violence and aggression and promote sexual safety. In an interview with HSJ, Mr Higginson said these safety issues have been raised consistently in the RDUH’s staff surveys, and leaders need to talk about them “a lot more.” In the latest NHS staff survey, the number of staff reporting physical violence from patients or members of the public was at 13.5 per cent nationally, and 12 per cent at RDUH. This proportion has been falling slightly in recent years but widespread concerns about staff safety remain. A union has warned recently that NHS England is cutting several national initiatives aimed at reducing violence against staff. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 November 2024
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