Hospital Violence Reduction – Legislative Landscape
There is a trend in many countries to bring into play specific legislation which seeks to protect public services workers from crimes of violence and aggression committed against them. Often this legislation places higher sentencing tariffs for crimes of assault against emergency services workers.
While undoubtedly a control measure which primarily seeks to deter acts of violence against staff, this kind of legislative strategy also gives staff some comfort and confidence that, at a high level, their safety and security is valued.
Furthermore, as in the following example, it is not unusual that health and safety-oriented legislation would specifically outline the systematic ways in which an organisation should be controlling violence risk to its employees:
It is in fact highly likely that there already exists OSH Occupational Safety and Health, or HSE Health Safety and Environment (HSE) legislation in any given country or state which can be used to protect the staff and the workplace of a Hospital from forseeable risks of workplace violence and aggression.
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, personal safety and physical interventions training consultant. He is the training director for Dynamis, a specialist provider of personal safety and violence management programmes and the European Adviser for ‘Verbal Defense and Influence’, a global programme which addresses the spectrum of human conflict.
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