Nurses to wear body cameras in crackdown on hospital sexual assaults

[yourhairiswinterfire]

Nurses are set to be given body-worn cameras in a crackdown on hospital sexual assaults under government plans.

Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, is believed to be keen on giving healthcare workers cameras similar to those worn by paramedics and police officers in an effort to combat high levels of rape and sexual assault in hospitals.
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A recent trial of body cameras at a hospital in Oxford revealed that they were better received by staff than anticipated and provided feelings of reassurance.

Unions are thought to be receptive to the idea of body-worn cameras for healthcare workers, despite some privacy concerns, after largely positive reactions from members who are increasingly prioritising better working conditions and improved safety measures.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/24/nurses-body-cameras-crackdown-hospital-sexual-assaults/

(Article can be read on the archive. is site by copying and pasting the link)

This has made me feel a little queasy, is it legal?! Will the cameras be recording as nurses are performing intimate procedures and care?

And nurses wearing cameras does nothing to prevent the sexual assault or rape of patients. The solution to that seems to be just report it afterwards and it'll be logged on an AI system to provide 'insights on trends'.

I work in an environment where body cams are the norm. I am a HUGE fan of them, they protect everyone. You can hit Record at any point and it will provide a full record of your interaction with someone.

I completely agree that there are ongoing issues surrounding patient safety. Those issues need serious consideration. Proper single-sex wings would be a good place to start.

Great tweet by Isla_Macy:

https://twitter.com/Isla_macy/status/1650878002689892354

For @ SteveBarclay to strip women of the privacy, dignity and security in intimate examinations, death, non-capacity, despair and think that their care will be benefitted by a nurse wearing a body cam, tells me so much about the state of nursing in 2023.

I trained and signed 1000's of nurses onto the professional NMC register and I'm sickened that any nurse would imagine that videoing patients at their most vulnerable, will benefit that patient experience.

The GDPR issues of non-capacitous patients being filmed should surely be reason enough to see this as a costly and bad idea; most certainly in the legal dept.

Whilst paramedics and police are attacked regularly, and I can see the value legally, NHS inpatient professionals have a completely different role with patients. The majority of hospital assaults are against patients when they are alone. Not against staff. This isn't an epidemic of staff attacks.

To share your most intimate moments in life, when you are at your most vulnerable, most desperate, requires trust, compassion and honour. A bodycam video smashes that concept to smithereens.

Patient care needs privacy, dignity and trust to share life's most precious and difficult moments; often of domestic violence, fear, trauma, shame, distress.

The CQC has been identifying the chronic underfunding of NHS units for years. Mental health units are well documented as being high risk environments for sexual violence against women not only because they are mixed sex but because patients are sectioned.

Sexual disinhibition is high and police do not adequately investigate crimes because patients are not deemed competent.

Body cameras would not help this, because staff are not the with patients when they are attacked, and also those patients are still deemed incompetent.
Patients are largely alone on wards because of chronic understaffing, this is the hard truth of the NHS.

Mixed sex wards, Annex B - 'choose what ward you identify with' policy has only increased the amount of men in women's spaces.

It is time for a serious discussion about the risk to women in the NHS from male violence.

The lies and gaslighting from the NHS when men are actually welcomed via policy into our spaces.

The erasure of women in language in campaigns and literature.

The risk to our safety from chronic understaffing.

Body Cameras are not the answer and I urge you all to push back against this.

holy shit this is the worst idea ever. Either the cameras are off when they're washing people/doing intimate procedures, in which case their value in preventing sexual assaults is approximately 0, or they're on, and the videos will be on porn sites within 2 weeks of this policy going live.

Is the real goal here to destroy the NHS? Seriously asking. It certainly isn't about protecting patients.

Like fuck will I be filmed by nurse's treating me

I can understand how bodycams would protect staff from being abused, but filming patients, especially patients undergoing treatment or intimate care, is an abuse in itself and is open to all sorts of exploitation. How much of this footage is going to end up on the internet? How many pervy staff members are going to be sneaking this footage home? How many people are going to be further put off seeking medical treatment because they don't want to be filmed? Why are politicians so wilfully stupid or naive that they never foresee these issues?

I think they could have value but in a carefully used way. I did a placement in UTC and witnessed a couple of very aggressive members of the public who, not liking the advice given after being triaged, were very threatening and abusive to the ACP. This was in a private side room and the ACP would normally be completely alone. As the student nurse it worries me and frankly was pretty scary how vulnerable you are.
Obviously the use of them in intimate care is not a starter and will never happen so I don't see the point in getting my knickers in a twist over it! 😂

And yes, the women I know who have been assaulted while in hospital have, with one exception, been assaulted by male patients.