Debate contribution: Violence Against Healthcare Staff

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 18 February 2025.

MLA: Mr Mike Nesbitt
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist Party
Date: 18 February 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Heading: Violence Against Healthcare Staff
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4806439

Text

I thank the Member, and I share his concern. Those things are societal issues, I am afraid, but it is a matter of utter regret that they are making their way on to health and social care campuses and that they are happening to health and social care staff beyond the curtilage of hospitals and other health and social care sites. I advise the Member that that issue was first addressed in some depth in recent times towards the end of 2023, when the trusts and the union side came together to agree the paper 'Violence and Aggression in the Workplace' in NHS settings. The pilot scheme for body-worn video in the Belfast Trust is helpful. As a member of the Policing Board, I was impressed with the impact of the use of body-worn video by officers in the PSNI. I would like to see that pilot successfully concluded and rolled out. We must have zero tolerance of attacks. We must be imaginative and generous in what we do to protect health and social care staff.

176 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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