Hospitals fight abuse with campaign of kindness

A kindness campaign has been launched to tackle abuse of staff at Leicester's hospitals.

More than 100 acts of aggression are recorded by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) each month, from verbal abuse and racism to physical assaults.

Staff say they have been punched, kicked and headbutted and witnessed furniture including chairs and TVs thrown.

Hotspots for incidents include the emergency department and the maternity unit, said UHL.

Offenders can be issued with verbal warnings, letters, formal reports to police, and where necessary, Criminal Behaviour Orders can be issued through the courts, the trust added.

But Dr Yassar Malik, a foundation doctor in his first year of training, said the impact of abuse went further than just the incident.

He said: "I had a patient threaten his life and threaten my life. For me the biggest concern is that has quite an impact on me, a lasting impact, and then I have another 11 hours of my shift to go.

"It's all about being understanding of what we're going through behind the scenes that you might not see."

Lily Jones, a sister in accident and emergency, said the abuse made her feel anxious and staff not want to come to work.

"I've had things thrown at me from patients including chairs, iPads and things like that," she said.

"I've seen my colleagues be punched, kicked, spat at. We've had the television in our waiting room actually smashed by one of our patients, so it can be quite intimidating for the staff that work in here.

"They're worried it's going to happen again."

Ms Jones is now one of the members of staff featured on a poster campaign across UHL buildings asking for patients and visitors to show kindness towards staff.

Last year UHL introduced body-worn cameras in its A&E department which they said had been a "successful deterrent" so these will now be rolled out to the Clinical Decision Unit at Glenfield Hospital.

Last year a safety app was also introduced for staff to install to alert security teams of incidents.

Kim Hudson, head of security at UHL, said: "We're hoping to shine a spotlight on what's taking place in our hospitals and encourage people to treat our colleagues with respect.

"We understand that coming to hospital is extremely stressful experience for patients, for visitors, people are poorly, we do understand that, but we have an expectation that you will treat our colleagues in a respectful and kind way."

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