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Branch Secretary’s Corner
Colleagues,
You may or may not be aware but the Trust has released figures to the Press on Tuesday 30th August 2011 showing that there had been an increase of 10% in reported assaults on ambulance staff over the past year.
This is obviously an extremely worrying trend in view of the fact that ambulance staff only ever turn up to patients to help them in their hour of need. We are all aware that some patients who because of the medical conditions they may have are unable to be aware or have the capacity to be aware of what they are doing.
Some questions that need to be posed, is there a single significant factor that has caused this rise in these reported incidents? Can the ready availability of alcohol now so cheap in supermarkets be a major contributing factor? Is our multi-cultural society which has grown significantly have a lack of understanding of our culture and the respect all our emergency services should be afforded, a factor? The big question is what can us as individuals and the Trust as a whole as well as society and the authorities in general do to lessen and eradicate assaults on our hard working and caring staff?
We can as a workforce carry out dynamic risk assessments at the scenes of incidents and make sure that all incidents however small are reported via the online DATIX system and when this is done request to the investigating managers to be kept informed of progress regarding complaints we as staff make.
Secondly, we as a union strongly implore the Trust to vigorously follow up the complaints with the relevant authorities and see them through to successful prosecutions.
As we are aware any successful conviction from the courts is dependent on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) putting such cases before the courts. Staff who are the victims do not want to hear reasons for this not to happen such as ‘it isn’t in the public interest’ we see this as a cop out and does our staff and members a great dis-service.
We need to be seen to report all incidents of violence and aggression and the legal authorities need to come down hard on the perpetrators.
Above all lets be safe!!!!!
Regards
Gary Applin
Branch Secretary, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, UNISON Branch 20106
