This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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First ever NHS staff health and safety survey
26/05/2004
A survey on NHS staff including absence and occupational
injury was published for the first time today. Scotland is
the first UK Health Department to carry out such a
study.
The survey, NHSScotland Occupational Health and Safety,
publishes pilot data for 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2002-03.
The survey will help employers plan occupational health
and safety activity for the benefit of NHSScotland staff,
after it showed that nurses and midwives experience the
greatest number of violent incidents.
Welcoming the report Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm
said:
"Frontline staff are the health service's biggest asset
and employers must ensure that their needs are met. This
survey will help them plan effectively in this very
important area."
Commenting on the findings, he said:
"Encouragingly, time lost to sickness and absence has
dropped slightly over the last three years. The number of
staff who had to leave work due to health grounds is down
and also the number of compensation claims has fallen.
"Worryingly, the number of occupational injuries has
increased. Approximately 90 per 1000 staff were subject to
a violent or abusive attack in the latest year. Out of all
NHS staff, nurses and midwives experience the greatest
number of violent incidents. Dedicated staff should be
free to go about their work without this hanging over
them. Every employer should have systems in place so staff
can report such behaviour.
"I and my Ministerial colleagues have made it crystal
clear that violence and abuse of NHS staff will not be
tolerated in a modern Scotland.
"There is no excuse for loutish or abusive behaviour in
any setting, and directing such behaviour against the very
people who are trying to care for others is doubly
intolerable.
"However, we recognise that this is still happening and
that is why we are taking work forward in a number of areas
to tackle the problem.
"The Zero Tolerance poster campaign, launched last year,
aims to stamp out this unacceptable behaviour. It is a
united message that is coming from health service staff,
trade unions and the professions as well as the Scottish
Executive.
"The Executive has also issued guidelines on action that
could be taken against persistently violent patients -
including the ultimate sanction of withholding
treatment.
"Furthermore, the Executive has introduced the Emergency
Workers Bill will make it an offence to assault, obstruct
or hinder an emergency service worker, or anyone assisting
them, who is responding to an emergency.
"Finally, I would encourage all staff who have been
subjected to a violent or abusive incident to report it, no
matter how trivial it may seem."
Jim Devine, Scottish organiser for Health for Unison,
said:
"This pilot study is a start for providing a clearer
national picture. It is a positive step in reminding the
people of Scotland that it is not the part of an NHS
worker's job to be physically or verbally abused at
work.
"I welcome the initiatives by the Executive but clearly
there is more that needs to be done.
"What this shows is that nearly one in ten staff suffer
verbal or physical attacks in the course of a year. If
this was projected throughout Scotland it would mean that
around two health service workers are abused every hour of
the day. And that's totally unacceptable."
George Brechin, Chief Executive NHS Fife and Susan
Russell, of the GMB union, co-chairs of Occupational Health
and Safety Strategy Implementation group (OHSSIG),
said:
"We welcome this report as an important first step in
developing our knowledge base. This is the first time data
has been collected centrally by any UK Health
Department.
"We know more work needs to be done, the information
gathered is enabling us to identify gaps in our data
collection systems where improvements might be made. We
also recognise that reporting needs to be supported and
encouraged and it is a measure of success that we are
working towards a culture where staff feel listened to and
feel able to report all occupational health and safety
issues."
The occupational health and safety strategy for
NHSScotland staff Towards
a Safer Healthier Workplace, published in December
1999, concluded that there was a scarcity of good
information available concerning the health and safety of
staff employed by NHSScotland and the information available
was not collected in a consistent way by all employers.
Three years of pilot data is being published by
Information Statistics
Division Scotland (ISD) for the first time on the
following basis:
- three year trend by organisation type;
- 2002-03 trend by organisation type and detail;
and
- 2002-03 trend by staff group.
The report is available at
www.isdscotland.org/workforce
The Executive is taking forward work in a number of
areas to make NHS workplaces
safer.
A core part of the Executive's Violence and Aggression
strategy will be the rolling out of the results from the
ten projects provided by the Occupational Health and Safety
Strategy Implementation Group with help from NHS Health
Scotland, aimed at coping with or reducing violence and
aggression in the workplace. These projects represent a
diverse range of strategies and perspectives, both
preventative and responsive for tackling this problem.
- Development of a risk assessment tool and training
programme aimed at managing violence and
aggression;
- Construction of an A&E barrier, provision and
evaluation of an electronic lockdown process in non
public areas and implementation and evaluation of the
guardian Angel - lone worker system;
- To improve and re-evaluate the effectiveness of a
24hr violent incidence response team;
- Promoting zero tolerance activity through publicity
and education, e-learning in the hospital and primary
care setting. In January 2003, the Partnership
Information Network (PIN) Board published the Managing
Health at Work Guideline. The guidance focuses on the
major issues that affect the wellbeing, health and
safety of staff in their every day working environment,
such as stress, lone working, attendance, violence and
aggression, manual handling, biological and chemical
dangers. Within the guideline was the ultimate sanction
for withholding treatment from patients in extreme
cases.
The Finance and Public Services Minister, Andy Kerr met
with the STUC,
individual trade unions and professional bodies over
the summer of 2003 to discuss proposals for an Emergency
Workers Bill. A formal consultation period ran from
December 8 2003 to February 6 2004; responses received were
broadly positive. The Emergency Workers Bill was
introduced in the Scottish Parliament on March 22 2004.