Tackling incidents of violence, aggression and antisocial behaviour

Abstract

Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has developed Sand implemented a strategy to reduce the number of incidents of violence, aggression and antisocial behaviour in its emergency department. The strategy, which includes the introduction of a nurse co-ordinator role and withdrawal of treatment from persistent offenders, has ensured the care environment is safer and calmer for patients and staff. This article discusses different aspects of the strategy and the ethics of withdrawing care from patients.

Security interventions are frequently undocumented in emergency department clinical notes

“…While it is generally recommended that incidents of WPV be reported in hospital risk management systems, such systems are largely administrative in nature and, unlike the clinical record, are not designed to be a contemporaneous record of information essential to the immediate clinical care of patients. Under‐reporting of WPV by clinicians in risk management systems is a well‐recognised problem and it is not known if this extends to the documentation of WPV and security interventions in the clinical record. Security service information systems in which security officers, who attend incidents of WPV in EDs, record details of their activities, are not designed for clinical use but provide an opportunity to compare the clinical record with a secondary data source.…”