Sixty attacks on hospital staff in Epsom, Sutton and St Helier (From Sutton Guardian)

Sixty attacks on hospital staff in Epsom, Sutton and St Helier

7:10am Wednesday 18th November 2009

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Violent and aggressive patients and relatives are making life hell for doctors and nurses at all three local hospitals, Epsom, St Helier and Sutton.

Last year there were 60 assaults on hospital staff but the only good news about the latest statistics released by NHS Security Management Service is that the number of attacks has dropped from more than 100 the previous year.

Samantha Jones, chief executive of Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “It is obviously good news that the number of assaults within our hospitals has fallen, but the fact is, it should not happen at all.

“It saddens me that staff at our hospitals – who work incredibly hard to help and treat members of the public in their hour of need – have to endure physical and verbal attacks from a small minority of patients and their visitors.

“We have a zero tolerance policy against any kind of abusive or violent behaviour towards staff and we will not hesitate in contacting our on-site security team or the police as soon as it is necessary. Assaults on staff are never, ever justifiable and we will do everything we can to prevent them.”

In the accident and emergency (A&E) department at St Helier Hospital, physical and verbal abuse is a common occurrence.

Senior A&E registrar Tomasz Soltysinski, who is taller than most at 6 ft 5in said: “I had a particularly bad week recently, when two separate individuals tried to punch me in just a matter of days. On the first occasion, a woman had come into the department and was blind drunk. As I began examining her injuries, she tried to punch me in the face. I managed to duck and avoid the punch, but it’s just not acceptable that people throw their fists at me, or at anyone working within the hospital.

“A couple of days later, I had to confiscate a bottle of vodka from a man. He got very irate and jumped on me with his fists flying everywhere.

“I’m not here to fight; I’m not here to deal with trouble; I am here to help.

"Sadly though, some people make it very hard for us to do our jobs.

"It can be quite frightening when people turn on you, and it does make the job much harder. But we have a good security team here and the police are on site within minutes if and when we need them.”

The trust has a raft of measures in place to reduce the risk of violence or verbal abuse to staff, including training all frontline staff in conflict resolution. The security team is also on-site 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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