Attacked at work, not a criminal matter, who's responsible then?

Uncertain

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

In any case, she needs to get herself in a union, although they will probably not handle this incident because she wasn't a member when it happened.

They might just on something like this as it has wider implications for all their members.

milliemonster

You cannot work in a nursing capacity with broken ribs and as a nursing auxiliary there are no duties you can do with broken ribs, we need nurses who are fit to be at work! there are some jobs you can do with broken ribs perhaps, nursing is not one of them!

To the OP, the one thing I am struggling with getting my head around is that patients like this generally do not just suddenly assault someone without warning, especially in such an intimate situation as to be attempting to change someones pad, I find it difficult to accept that this patient was completely compliant to a point and then lashed out with such force, generally patients like this will become agitated and build up before they lash out to such a degree.

I think your friend has no chance of claiming back anything for their holiday. As a nurse myself we see many patients who either lack capacity, are aggressive naturally or due to medication/psychosis/dementia etc and they are very difficult to manage as we cannot just get an 'extra nurse' in to specifically look after these patients, generally we have to get security to help.

It's also no longer acceptable to have sedation prescribed 'as needed' due to deprivation of liberty and in fact sedation can make these issues worse.

I know that Trusts do provide training to cover themselves but we all know training in a classroom when it's not the real world on the ward is totally unrealistic and it is a sad fact that staff do get assaulted often by patients who do not have capacity (at that moment in time) to understand what they are doing, there is no way of apportioning blame in these scenarios and it's a case of trying to reduce the risk of something like this happening by looking for warning signs, undertaking nursing tasks that are only absolutely necessary and using reasoning, other members of their family who are familiar to the patient to help etc.

Kaz2904

milliemonster wrote: »

You cannot work in a nursing capacity with broken ribs and as a nursing auxiliary there are no duties you can do with broken ribs, we need nurses who are fit to be at work! there are some jobs you can do with broken ribs perhaps, nursing is not one of them!
Thank you! So many people can't see this.
To the OP, the one thing I am struggling with getting my head around is that patients like this generally do not just suddenly assault someone without warning, especially in such an intimate situation as to be attempting to change someones pad, I find it difficult to accept that this patient was completely compliant to a point and then lashed out with such force, generally patients like this will become agitated and build up before they lash out to such a degree.
Yes, generally they will.
I think your friend has no chance of claiming back anything for their holiday.
Shame.
As a nurse myself we see many patients who either lack capacity, are aggressive naturally or due to medication/psychosis/dementia etc and they are very difficult to manage as we cannot just get an 'extra nurse' in to specifically look after these patients, generally we have to get security to help.
Yep, same everywhere I expect. It's very rare that you manage to get a 1:1 nurse.
It's also no longer acceptable to have sedation prescribed 'as needed' due to deprivation of liberty and in fact sedation can make these issues worse.
Which leaves us with situations where you have very agressive patients who are unmanageable and a danger to themselves because the doctors are not able to get to the ward to review when you first bleep them because they are too busy.
I know that Trusts do provide training to cover themselves but we all know training in a classroom when it's not the real world on the ward is totally unrealistic and it is a sad fact that staff do get assaulted often by patients who do not have capacity (at that moment in time) to understand what they are doing, there is no way of apportioning blame in these scenarios this is what the CICA are there for. and it's a case of trying to reduce the risk of something like this happening by looking for warning signs, undertaking nursing tasks that are only absolutely necessary changing a patient who is soaking wet +++ is an absolutely necessary task though, would you not agree? and using reasoning, other members of their family the family are unwilling to help out with any care. They complain about every aspect of his hospital admissions and think that nursing staff are lazy if we suggest they may want to help calm him despite it being in his best interests who are familiar to the patient to help etc.

Thank you for your reply. I agree with everything you are saying. Apart from the fact that my friend suffered a serious injury. It is not lawful to be assaulted. Imagine how hard you have to be kicked in the chest to break ribs and imagine how that felt to have it happen twice. Then imagine that the entire world is split, half say "yes well it's part of your job, get over it" and the other half say "Oh no, that sucks. Naff all we csan do about it though.".
It's not right. It's like being hit by an uninsured driver, that's what we have the MIB for. The government recognized that sometimes things happen to an innocent party which they should be recompensed for but that the perpetrator cannot recompense them for. That is why we have the CICA. However, because the police will not issue a crime number, the CICA cannot procede. The police have to issue a crime number because an assault is a crime whether or not the perpetrator is able to be held accountable for their actions. It is not up to the police to decide who is prosecuted anyway. I expect they just don't want another unsolved crime on their books.

milliemonster

I don't know anything about CICA I'm afraid but I absolutely wholeheartedly disagree that being assaulted 'goes with the job', it absolutely does not, I did not train for 3 years to become a registered nurse and be paid £10 an hour to be beaten by patients whether they know what they are doing or through no fault of their own.

I totally understand how difficult it becomes when you have a family who truly believe it is up to the medical and nursing staff to do everything with a patient like this, the public need to understand that when you have a patient who is extremely confused, delirious, has dementia etc then having a family member there to help is not about making our lives easier it actually helps to calm the patient down as it is a familiar face whom they recognise.

We have a similiar situation at work at the moment, a lovely old lady who is post arrest and due to hypoxia is delirious, she hasn't eaten or drunk anything for 2 days as she is highly suspicious of us and refuses to, her poor husband is with her constantly (whom she had in a headlock yesterday) who desperately needs a break but won't leave her side and we are approaching the point of having to physicaly restrain her to sedate her to give her IV fluids as she is going to be approaching severe dehydration soon. She has lashed out on a number of occasions but so far noone has been hurt, I ask though, when I have a further 10 patients to look after, how I would be expected to look after them along with this lady safely if her husband wasn't there to help?

Traceyg

At our hospital when there is an incident an incident reporting form should be completed and that is generally sent to Risk Management at the hospital, also a PARS form should be competed by the person who was assaulted and should also be sent to Risk Management / Local Security Management Specialist, copy of form: (https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/SecurityManagement/Documents/pars_form.doc)

She could always go down the route of putting in a liability claim with NHS litigation via a solicitor, they will ask her management to provide copies of all her training records and then decide if there is something in the case.

I deal with the PARS forms and see a lot of cases like these, especially with dementia patients, just got to remember that it's not the patients fault, they cannot help having dementia and most if they knew what they were doing would be ashamed of their actions.

Good luck to you friend

Kaz2904

Thanks for the link above. I was unable to open it but was able to open half a page from googling the info. Hopefully if I get the computer open, I will be able to get the whole page open!