Violence at Work

Citation

Stark C & Paterson B (1994) Violence at Work. BMJ, 308 (6920), pp. 62-62. http://www.bmj.com.ezproxy.stir.ac.uk/content/308/6920/62.3; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.308.6920.62b

Abstract
We welcome the Department of Health's announcement that general practitioners will soon be able to remove violent or abusive patients from their lists immediately but wish to sound a note of caution. As Coid pointed out, people who are violent or difficult to manage do not disappear when one group ceases to deal with them. Social services and accident and emergency departments have reported increases in assaults in recent years, to the extent that security guards are becoming common in accident and emergency departments. When general practitioners' new power comes into force violent patients are likely to gravitate towards these other emergency services even more than at present, particularly over weekends and during holidays. General practitioners should be able to decline to treat violent patients, but violence cannot be eliminated from the caring services solely by the exclusion of violent patients. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992, which came into force last January, require employers to assess the risks to health and safety to which their employees are exposed while at work; to record their assessment; and to organise, monitor, and review any preventive or protective measures required. The risk assessment should include what "it is reasonably practicable to expect employers to know about hazards in their workplace." There seems no reason why the legislation should not apply to violence at work in the same way that it applies to any other foreseeable hazard. Accident and emergency departments should use the alterations to general practitioners' contracts, as well as the new health and safety regulations, as a spur to effective planning to reduce violence and to train staff in preventing and managing violence. We hope that the guidance from the Department of Health will address violence to all health care staff.

Notes
Output Type: Letter

Journal
BMJ: Volume 308, Issue 6920