‘We feel more like prison guards than nurses’MENTAL
DOCTORS and nurses working in mental health units in North Wales are more than twice as likely to be attacked by patients as other health board staff.
Latest figures show more than two thirds (70%) of all 1,500 assaults since 2014/15 on Betsi Cadwaladr workers happened to people working with patients suffering mental health problems.
While the overall number of incidents is going down, mental health professionals have told sister paper the Daily Post they are working in a “dangerous environment” and feel more like “prison guards than nurses”.
Trade union Unison said it was “appalled” by the figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request, while health board bosses said abuse of staff would not be tolerated.
Andy Rutherford, Unison’s regional organiser, said: “People will be appalled to learn that hundreds of NHS staff, dedi- cated to serving their community, and patients are attacked every year at Betsi’s hospitals. Assaults and intimidation are completely unacceptable and Unison campaigns for the strongest safeguards for health workers and zero tolerance towards perpetrators.
“There are good policies in place at Betsi and we expect the health board to do as much as it can to ensure the number of assaults continues to decrease.”
Last year 465 staff were assaulted, down from 520 in 2015/16 and 562 in 2014/15. In 2016/17, the proportion of mental health staff attacked (331) was more than 71%, down from 72% (375) in 2015/16.
However, less than 63% of attacks were targeted at mental health professionals in 2014/15 – the year prior to the board going into special measures, largely due to failures in mental health provision.
A mental health professional, who wanted to highlight the dangers facing staff, said workers are “exhausted, depleted and unheard” in what she called a “dangerous environment”.
Geoff Ryall-Harvey, boss of North Wales Community Health Council, said the figures didn’t tell the whole story. “The figures don’t support the idea of a substantial increase. In fact, it has fallen but it says nothing about the seriousness of the assaults and, in any case, figures are one thing and being a member of staff and feeling unsupported is another,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Betsi Cadwaladr said: “We are pleased there has been a reduction in the number of incidents over the last few years. We take incidents of violence against our staff extremely seriously, and will not tolerate abuse against staff.
“Staff receive specialist training in the management of violence and aggression and are provided full support following an incident.
“Our staff in mental health work with a dedicated team of specialist nurses who are also leading national work on the prevention of violence and aggression against staff.”