GBH on the NHS

The programme’s research team had contacted health authorities across the UK to assess how much was being spent on security (including CCTV and panic alarms), training staff to deal with instances of violence and aggression, covering any resultant absenteeism and the pursuance of offences (and their perpetrators) through the Courts.

Panorama concluded that, between 2005 and 2006, the National Health Service (NHS) spent upwards of £100 million on dealing with violence and abuse (north of the border, that cost was trebled). An outlay that is the equivalent of 4,500 nurses’ salaries, or more than 800,000 paramedic call-outs.

Reporter Shelley Jofre spent nine months at two of the UK’s busiest hospitals – Heartlands in Birmingham and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary – duly uncovering what senior Heartlands consultant (and conflict resolution specialist) Tony Bleetman describes as “the very small tip of an extremely large iceberg”. Considered estimates suggest that 75,000 NHS staff were attacked last year alone.

Jofre also discovered that fewer than 2% of attacks on staff result in prosecutions. NHS staff claim that much of the abuse they suffer isn’t reported. Amai Gold – a nurse left permanently disabled after a patient stabbed her with a needle – told the programme that her case was dropped after a two-and-a-half-year fight to reach the Courts. Appalling.

What’s more, the picture painted by the BBC’s much-lauded current affairs strand differs markedly from the official Government/NHS line reported in Security Management Today’s December 2006 edition (‘NHS: “Violence down, prosecutions on the up”’, News Update, p10).

A spokesperson for the NHS Security Management Service (SMS) claimed on Panorama that there has been a reduction in violent attacks perpetrated against staff, with more prosecutions being effected. Around 250,000 members of staff have now received specialist training to deal with abuse. In relation to this problem, we are told, monies available to the NHS are being spent “wisely and effectively”.

What’s the real story behind the headlines, then? Is the Memorandum of Understanding signed with ACPO bearing fruit or not? SMT will soon be interviewing Richard Hampton, head of the NHS SMS. It should be a lively discussion.