NHS Lanarkshire has joined the multi-agency campaign, Your Safety Matters, to raise awareness and ensure a safe, healthy and respectful workplace environment, free from violence and abuse.
The campaign, led by Police Scotland, has been supported by all health boards and a number of other partners.
The purpose of the group is to develop an integrated approach to address issues of violence and aggression against staff and determine any appropriate preventative measures that can be undertaken by all member organisations.
Within NHS Lanarkshire the occupational health and safety performance group (OHSPG) helps to facilitate divisional service leads to share findings on acts of violence and aggression, review training support provided for staff, share learnings, identify good practice and collaborate for the mutual benefit of staff across NHS Lanarkshire to reduce the risks of staff becoming affected by acts of violence and aggression.
To support the campaign (#NotPartofTheJob), a set of posters has been developed for display in public facing areas (purple colourway) and staff-only areas (green colourway).
To access the posters, click here.
Posters can be printed by medical illustration. Print requests should be emailed to mis@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk using the title ‘Salus Posters’. State clearly your name, site address and department.
Let medical illustration know what poster you require (with a description or by numbering one to eight), include size (A3, A4 or A5) and quantity. There is a maximum of ten posters per order.
Gordon Gray, NHS Lanarkshire head of health and safety, said:
“Over 80% of health and safety incidents reported on Datix are linked to aggressive behaviours from patients and service users towards staff. The four most common types of incidents in order of occurrence are physical assaults, threatening and intimidating behaviour, verbal abuse, and telephone abuse.
“NHS Lanarkshire has a range of policies and procedures supported through training and support staff to, where possible, reduce risks from violence and aggression. The latest research has indicated that the most effective measure to address incidents involves defusing and de-escalating situations at the earliest possible opportunity.
“To support this latest initiative, service leads are asked to remove previous posters, including the poster ‘It’s your choice of treatment’, which should be discarded in confidential waste units and replaced with the preferential range of posters from the new range published. A range of sizes for display in public-facing and staff areas can be ordered through medical illustration in A5, A4 and A3 sizes.”
If you have any concerns related to violence and aggression, please contact our local helpline on 01698 759333 or a member of the prevention and management of violence and aggression service through FirstPort/Staff Support/Salus Occupational Health and Safety/PaMoVA or via the link here.
