Options appraisal for the national collection of incident data on violence and abuse against NHS staff

Salisbury NHSFT's Managed Procurement Services are working on behalf of NHS Commissioning Board (NHS England / NHS Improvement) in offering the following opportunity for suppliers :

The NHS People Plan 2020/21 was published in July, with a strong emphasis on 'Looking after our People' - including 23 commitments related to health and wellbeing. One of the NHS People Plan Promise's is that all our people feel supported, safe and secure at work.

"The safety and health of our people is paramount. Leaders across the NHS have a statutory duty of care to prevent and control violence in the workplace - in line with existing legislation - so that people never feel fearful or apprehensive about coming to work."

There is overwhelming evidence regarding the impact that violence, harassment and abuse can have on people's health and wellbeing, affecting mental and physical health. In the most tragic cases, this can result in loss of life or life-changing injuries and psychological issues. For others, it can lead to increased stress and anxiety levels, reduced confidence and resilience, and an impact on their families.

Research shows that staff who experience violence and aggression at work are four times more likely to take sick leave and are more inclined to leave the NHS. The pandemic has arguably compounded the risks of traumatisation for many people, including health care leaders and their teams. There is also an increasing body of evidence highlighting the impact violence and abuse has on patient care.

It is acknowledged that data collection is a powerful tool to assess the scale of the issue allow the NHS to establish a baseline, consider strategies and policy to improve staff safety and measure improvement overtime. However, since NHS Protect was disbanded in 2016 there has been no national NHS wide data collection of incidents relating to violence, harassment and abuse against our NHS colleagues. The only sector that has continued to collect and report on an annual basis is the ambulance service.

Incident data is, however, still collected individually by Trusts but there is no mechanism currently to view and assess the data at a regional or national level to inform future planning, commissioning and future interventions. From a small scale incident data collection exercise conducted in 2021 it was evident from the local data held by a number of Trusts that there are many inconsistencies and gaps around recording and naming conventions in relation to the recording of incidents of violence, harassment and abuse in the workplace and potential causation factors. There is a systemwide need to understand the scale of violence, harassment and abuse against NHS staff, to contribute to the understanding of staff health and wellbeing. It is recognised that in addition to systems currently used at a local level within the NHS, there may be new data collection systems available and solutions may also be reached by harnessing external reporting systems used by other agencies to meet the needs of the NHS.

2 Aim and objective of review

2.1 Aims

The aim of the project is to better understand the tools and resources available to capture incidence of violence, harassment and bullying against the NHS workforce in all healthcare settings at an Integrated Care System, regional and national level.