to blame NHS privatisation for my sister being beaten up?

[edamsavestheday]

My sister was attacked at work last night. She's a nurse in a mental health trust. There aren't enough staff to care for patients safely - 40 per cent vacancy rate - because the contract for her service is coming up for renewal and the trust knows they will lose it. So disturbed patients get violent, sometimes because there aren't enough people to care for their needs, they can't communicate easily and get frustrated, and there aren't enough people to handle the situation safely.

She's battered and bruised, he punched her back and neck repeatedly, she got home at 3am when shift finished at 9 supposedly and she's facing losing her job. Companies bidding for the contract include big household names in broadband and mobile phones FFS. What expertise do they have? And no one knows what kind of service they will provide and how vulnerable people with severe mental health problems and learning disabilities are going to be looked after.

Three other nurses have been assaulted in the past week. This is disastrous for patients and nurses right now but also when the contract changes and people are left without good, reliable and expert care.

edamsavestheday - I've read about something very similar recently. Is your sister's job under threat because she tried to restrain him and they have a rule about that?

Neli mental health nurses are allowed to restrain but we should be trained in techniques to do this safely and it should be done in a three man team it should only be done when absolutely necessary and for a minimum time as possible the problem is that where as ten years ago I walk on shift and if situations arose there would be adequate amount of fully trained staff I could now potentially walk on shift and be the only regular member of staff the rest being agency staff who have not done the relevant training and sometimes never even worked in mental health.

i hope your sister is ok . and yes you are correct there is not enough funding ..my hubby is seriously ill with mental health problems .

he spent a couple of months in a ward over christmas .and the staff kept telling me he was refusing to interact with other patients .the poor man is ill there was always fighting going on i saw it i was horrified he was terrified..

alcoholics /drug addicts all getting weaned off .various addictive things .were in the same ward as my poor hubby who has never touched drink or drugs in his life .and we don,t touch drink because his mother was an alcoholic not because we are all preachy .

they were horried to the staff some off them .when we were visiting we went to coffee shop because visitors not allowed on ward because of some of there behaviours..

and yes it will only get worse with severe underfunding

I was assaulted in A&E last week, which has definitely not been privatised. You never know when a patient is going to take a swing at you.

Neli!?!?!?

I think underfunding is the main issue and that privatisation and sub contracting has made it even worse.

As the OP says the contract holder is nearing the end of a contact that is not likely to be renewed. It is hardly a surprise that such a company is not recruiting new staff. However the CCG or Commissioning Unit (depending on where this is) is RESPONSIBLE for its patients and for the standards in the contract, and so need to be made aware of the incident. Local press / MP may be worth contacting.

OP I am sorry about your sister, and hope she is better soon.

If no one reports these thighs to the CQC and HSE then they will continue. Reports can be done anonymously and will then be investigated. Employers must safeguard staff and if they fail to do so, they are in breach of their duties. They can't stop every event but employers should have effective violence and aggression policies and procedures

I hope your sister is ok, and that she takes proper time to recover physically and mentally.

Please encourage her and her colleagues to report to the CQC, who have oversight regarding patient safety in particular as this ward sounds very unsafe for everyone involved.

Sometimes at work, fantasising about admitting various members of the cabinet under the mental health act just to make them see what consequences their callous decisions are having on so many people is what helps me get through the day...

fantasising about admitting various members of the cabinet under the mental health act just to make them see what consequences their callous decisions

This made me smile.

Leaning

It was filling in all the forms that kept her so late. She got home at 3am when shift should have finished at 9pm. (Lives 20mins from work.)

They are drowning in paperwork, it doesn't help, it hinders. Depending on the patient, there can be any thing from 15 to 54 different forms/ requests for information to complete for each admission.

Very very depressing. I agree that privatisation and specifically putting short term contracts out to tender should have no place here

This is very true op an admission can take hours and if god forbid anything goes tits up they will tear the poor nurse to pieces because of their record keeping I hope your ds is OK in my experience when it comes to the TMR or whatever the hell they call the investigation in your sisters trust they will somehow work out your sisters assault. Was the staffs fault they will never admit it is poor management and lack of staff as you can see I am very disillusioned and had enough after 21 years of this crap!

That is why it must be reported to an external body and followed up. An internal investigation can easily blame staff. A CQC or Hse one will not. They will look at what the employer is doing to prevent attacks.

www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices/violence/

press.hse.gov.uk/2014/care-provider-prosecuted-after-death-of-patient-during-restraint/