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Dept of Health

Answer

Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what targets were set in the Zero Tolerance campaign; what progress has been made; and how many targets have been met. [128111] Mr. Hutton: In 1999, in its "working together" framework, the Government set the National Health Service trusts three targets to reduce the number of incidents of violence against NHS staff: by April 2000, to have systems in place for recording incidents of violence to staff and publish strategies to achieve reductions in the levels of violence by: 20 per cent. by April 2001-02; and 30 per cent. by April 2003-04. A recent National Audit Office (NAO) report, "A safer place to Work -- Protecting NHS Hospital and Ambulance Trust Staff from Violence and Aggression", reported that: around 90 per cent. of NHS trusts have violence policies and systems in place for recording incidents; and the majority of NHS trusts did not meet the 2001-02 target for reducing incidents by 20 per cent. The NAO acknowledged that the increase in reported violent and abusive incidents in the majority of NHS trusts was mainly due to improved reporting rates, generally among NHS staff and in particular increased reporting of verbal abuse. The NAO suggests in its report, and this appears to be reflected in the data held by the Health and Safety Executive, that levels of physical assaults are stabilising. Responsibility for tackling assaults against staff working in the NHS passed to the Counter Fraud and Security Management Service (CFSMS) on 1 April 2003. During 2003-04, the CFSMS will be taking forward a number of initiatives to reduce the number of both physical and non-physical assaults. The CFSMS is currently developing: conflict resolution training for all frontline staff as a key preventive measure to reduce the number of incidents; a national and consistent reporting system to record incidents of physical assaults on staff, using a common definition, with the ability to track cases from report to conclusion. This will allow for intervention where appropriate in order to ensure the best possible outcome for the victim concerned and help increase the rate of offenders prosecuted; a consistent locally managed reporting system will be established to deal with non-physical assaults using the common law definition. Clear definitions of assault will enable sanctions that are appropriate to the incident to be sought; a legal protection unit to provide health bodies with advice on cost-effective methods of pursuing a wide range of sanctions against offenders, including criminal and civil action where appropriate; ways in which technology can be used to provide better protection for staff, working with the Home Office. One of the chosen test sites for the "Safer Hospitals" project as an ambulance trust; a Memorandum of Understanding with the Association of Chief Police Officers to ensure that a consistent national approach to reducing physical and non-physical assaults on staff is taken by both the NHS and the police.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

128111; 410 c154W;410 c153-4W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Hospitals Health services Health professions Protection Police Nurses Security Violence Treatment centres

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk