NORTH Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust has backed a joint national campaign with the police aimed at reducing assaults on healthcare staff.
The Trust's ongoing commitment to its workers' personal safety follows the unveiling of a new partnership between the NHS Security Management Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The two organisations have made an agreement on joint aims to reduce assaults on NHS staff and ensure tougher punishments for offenders.
As part of the initiative, both sides will:
* Investigate every reported incident of violence or abuse.
* Work with the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to increase tougher sentencing for offenders.
* Only caution offenders after they have been arrested and the matter has been discussed with the victim.
Chris Todd, the Trust's newly appointed security manager, said: "Our main priority is safeguarding the wellbeing of our staff and patients. We have already met with our local police beat manager and community support officers to discuss how we can address this issue from a local level.
'The Trust will not tolerate abusive physical or verbal behaviour from patients or relatives towards any of our staff. We keep a thorough record of all incidents and will be tracking the progress of any of the matters through the criminal justice system.
'Latest figures show that nationally one in every 22 NHS staff was physically assaulted by patients or relatives in the last year.
'The good news is that prosecutions for such incidents have increased 15-fold, and we want to ensure the courts hand out appropriate punishments to offenders.
'Any staff member who is attacked will receive a personal visit from me, which will help us gather evidence and will also focus on providing support for the people involved.'
He added that all staff can attend conflict resolution training which teaches them how to recognise and defuse potentially violent situations.
'We are in the process of revitalising the staff and security group. This will give people the chance to talk about general security matters and suggest further improvements to our security arrangements.'
