Verbal abuse and aggression towards NHS staff has become an everyday reality, a senior health leader has warned.
Speaking at Bedford Borough Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting on Monday (2 June), Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust (CCS) chief nurse Kate Howard said staff across the region are facing increased hostility.
And, she said, it’s having a serious impact on morale and wellbeing.
“We are unfortunately seeing an increase, as all organisations are, in terms of violence and aggression,” she told councillors.
“It is, unfortunately, an everyday situation within health care right now.
“Colleagues are experiencing quite a lot of disruption, but also being honest, some sadness about the way the public are talking to them
“So we’ve put extra support in place. I personally contact everybody that’s been a potential victim of violence and aggression to offer extra support.
“We’ve got a more robust policy which talks about self-care, what we can do differently to support our staff, how people can work in different areas.
“It is a big issue,” she said.
Cllr Dean Crofts (Lib Dems, Kingsbrook) asked if the Trust has been able to pinpoint the cause of the increase of incidents.
“Sometimes it’s frustration about waiting times,” Ms Howard said.
“Perhaps a district nurse turns up at 10.30am when their appointment was 10am, for example. It could be the patient is particularly unwell and in pain, there are a number of issues that we’ve identified from our data.”
Ms Howard added that communication could be an issue so the Trust is working to improve how it talks to patients and to staff.
“To promote better support to colleagues [such as] to say no [to people]. Nobody should stand for some of the verbal abuse my colleagues and my staff get,” she said.
Ms Howard added that some staff believe that working in the health sector means that they have to take the abuse.
“[This is] not true,” she said, “We have to support our colleagues to be resilient and actually to say no sometimes.”
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
