Violent patients 'attack 75,000 NHS workers'
Monday, 26 Feb 2007 12:43
About 75,000 workers were attacked last year
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Violence against NHS staff is costing the government £100 million a year, an investigation has revealed.
A report by the BBC programme Panorama found that about 75,000 staff were attacked last year by patients, many of whom were under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
These attacks led to extra costs in absenteeism, extra security, legal bills and training of staff.
The programme focussed its attentions on two British hospitals: Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary and Heartlands in Birmingham.
Examples of abuse included chairs being thrown at staff and doctors and nurses being punched.
Despite a zero tolerance towards violence in the NHS, fewer than two per cent of attacks result in prosecution.
Responding to the programme's findings, Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said that a "serious" look needs to be taken at "whether enough cases are leading to criminal prosecution".
"Proper training to deal with potential threats is essential," he said. "The spate of recent cutbacks in hospital training budgets, due to crippling deficits, is putting already over-burdened staff at serious risk.
"Police must take a more robust approach to cases of violence against staff. Everyone entering a hospital must be 100 per cent clear that violence against staff is never acceptable."
The NHS Security Management Service (SMS), which was set up in 2003 to target violence in the NHS, said that attacks against staff were "completely unacceptable" and that more than 250,000 staff have so far undergone training programmes to help them deal with threats.
"[Since 2003 there has been] a 16-fold increase in prosecutions of people who assault NHS staff and staff also report that they are more confident and better equipped than ever to deal with the threat of violence and abuse," a NHS SMS spokesman said.
"There is still a considerable amount of work to do but we feel the improvements that have been made show that the NHS is making headway against the antisocial minority who think it is acceptable to assault and abuse the staff, who are the lifeblood of the NHS."