Yobs use weapons on health workers

REPORTS of attacks on Lothian health workers with weapons are on the rise, new figures suggest.

Around two assaults every month now involve an offensive weapon compared to just a handful in previous years.

But while the new statistics are worrying, the overall number of attacks on health workers does appear to be falling.

The details, obtained by the Evening News under freedom of information legislation, show a total of 1,116 assaults were recorded in the first nine months of this financial year, compared to more than double that the previous year.

Of those, 14 incidents involved a weapon – compared to 22 for the year before but fewer than five in the two previous years.

Alan Boyter, director of human resources and organisational development with NHS Lothian, warned: "We will seek prosecution of anyone who is violent towards our staff. We have a robust system for the reporting of incidents and believe that staff awareness of it is high."

The general rise through the years has been credited to better reporting from workers and managers, rather than a growing trend of attacking nurses and other medical staff.

Verbal abuse of staff doesn't seem to be a problem with fewer than five incidents in each of the last two years involving racist, homophobic or sexist remarks.

Tom Waterson, Unison's Lothian branch chairman, said many workers did not formally report an assault when it happened, making it difficult to know the full extent of the problem.

"Thankfully assaults with weapons are relatively few and far between," he said. "Unison policy is to have properly trained in house security staff at hospitals.

"But general assaults on especially frontline health workers is an ongoing concern and we urge the Government to do more to stop it.

"Some people don't ever report an assault because they simply see it as part of their job, but to be fair to the NHS they do their best to encourage reporting.

"Anyone that assaults a health worker, either physically or verbally, should be punished in the same way as everyone else in a court of law."