The Health Secretary has announced steps to help protect NHS staff from abuse. These include new measures to encourage staff to report incidents to help ensure information is collected at national level. Data will also be analysed to better understand if certain staff groups face disproportionate risks, allowing trusts to protect the most vulnerable workers.
Commenting, Professor Dame Jane Dacre, Medical Protection President, said:
“Experiencing or witnessing abuse from patients - whether physical, verbal or sexual - can have a lasting and profound impact on mental wellbeing and this can be damaging for the individual as well as for patient care. It can also result in healthcare workers needing to take time off or even leaving medicine.
“Medical Protection has long called for rigorous enforcement of the zero-tolerance policy to abuse and steps to help encourage the reporting of abuse, so healthcare workers feel it is taken seriously and not considered just ‘part of the job’. We have also called for research to ascertain the training needs of different staff groups across the NHS for dealing with conflict. The measures announced by the Government are positive and we hope they are implemented with some urgency. If we don’t act quickly on this, sadly we may lose many more skilled, committed staff at a time when the profession can ill-afford it.”
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About MPS
The Medical Protection Society Limited (“MPS”) is the world’s leading protection organisation for doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals. We protect and support the professional interests of more than 300,000 members around the world. Membership provides access to expert advice and support and can also provide, depending on the type of membership required, the right to request indemnity for any complaints or claims arising from professional practice.
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