According to data from NHS Scotland, over 12,500 staff members experienced either physical or verbal assault in 2021. It is an alarming figure and one that goes to show the high-risk nature of working in hospital settings.

It is widely known that in some health care settings, patients may at times pose a threat to staff safety. Where service users are seriously unwell, they may act out violently or dangerously, leaving carers little time to protect themselves and others. As a result, measures have to be put in place to reduce aggressive behaviour.

In the NHS, staff are given de-escalation training to manage patient violence, the aim being to prevent aggressive behaviour from occurring at all. Similarly, health care professionals are required to report all incidents of violence and provide detailed handover notes about aggressive behaviour to ensure extra measures are taken when working with specific patients.

While effective in minimising the potential risk of violence, these measures provide little help should an act of aggression take place. Moreover, research has been deemed such measures insufficient to prevent the number of aggressive incidents in high-risk settings.

Likewise, the goal of ensuring that there is enough staff on site has proven difficult. has been widely publicised that the NHS is experiencing a staff shortage due to increasing numbers of staff absences and resignations catalysed by the pandemic. Where staff are not readily available, it is critical that emergency response teams can be alerted in times of crisis.

This is where staff panic systems come in.

Personal safety alarms serve to protect staff should an act of aggression occur. When faced with an emergency, health care professionals activate a wearable panic system that calls out for assistance, relaying the exact location and type of call to the response staff to act. The extreme efficacy of this integrated system guarantees that the staff member in question receives support in a timely manner, reducing the risk of physical aggression.

Our work with the staff at St George’s Hospital is further evidence of the benefits of integrated staff alarms. Here, personal staff alarm systems offer greater levels of protection than the previous system in place, while running at a lower cost. Most importantly, health care professionals at the hospital felt confident in the reliability and robust nature of the panic system.

By working in conjunction with preventative measures such as de-escalation training, panic alarm systems effectively limit the risk of violence against staff.

If you are interested in investing in staff panic systems to improve staff safety in your workplace, book a discovery call with a member of our team here.