Increase in attacks on hospital trust workers

Royal Oldham Hospital

THE number of attacks on staff at a hospital trust which oversees the Royal Oldham Hospital have surged, a new report found.

A total of 16.8 per cent of staff at Pennine Acute Hospitals said they had experienced physical violence from patients, relatives or members of the public in the past 12 months.

Pennine Acute, which also runs Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield General and North Manchester General, said the trust was looking at ways to reduce the amount of violence to ensure staff feel safe and supported at work.

They said there had been increased reporting of incidents caused by medical conditions such as dementia, confusion and delirium, after being actively encouraged to report violence.

There were 240 reported assaults at hospitals run by the trust in 2016, up from 169 in 2015.

Pennine Acute saw a five per cent increase between 2015 and 2016 in the percentage of staff experiencing violence.

Security management specialist at the trust Glynis Jones said: "We take the safety and security of our staff extremely seriously.

Priority

"As a priority over the next 12 months we are looking at what we can do to reduce the amount of violence staff experience at work from patients and the public, particularly front line staff, to ensure they feel safe and supported at work. This will be achieved through enhanced staff training in conflict resolution and physical intervention, improved communication and support from other agencies including the police.

"Staff are actively encouraged to report any violent or abusive incidents and the number of staff doing so has increased over the last year.

"This is due to the fact that we have nurtured a strong incident reporting culture."

A total of 1.9 per cent of staff at Pennine Acute said they had experienced violence from the public on more than 10 occasions, up from 0.9 per cent in 2015.

The percentage of staff experiencing harassment, bullying, or abuse from patients, relatives or members of the public had also risen from 24 per cent in 2015 to 30 per cent in 2016.

Mr Jones said: "While physical assaults for 2015/16 have increased, this has been due to an increase in the reporting of incidents caused by medical conditions such as dementia, confusion and delirium, which staff did not always report in the past. Other incidents of physical violence are actually decreasing.

"Our security staff are highly trained and our security managers liaise regularly with the neighbourhood police associated with all our hospitals. We work closely with our frontline staff, particularly in our A&E departments and Urgent Care Centre, our security teams and Greater Manchester Police, to look at how we can address and reduce incidents of violence."