FOI/25/168

Request

1/ How much money was spent by your trust on private security for the protection of staff in the following years?

2018 -

2019 -

2020 -

2021 -

2022 -

2023 -

 

Secondly,

2/ How many attacks were recorded on members hospital/ambulance staff by non-hospital staff in the same years?
2018 -

2019 -

2020 -

2021 -

2022 -

2023 -

 

Finally,

3/ If recorded, what was the nature of these incidents (verbal/physical/racial etc)?
2018 -

2019 -

2020 -

2021 -

2022 -

2023 -

 Clarification:

• By private security I'm asking for the money spent on additional security for the protection of staff outside of the usual hospital ground's security and outside of any in-house security spend such as that provided as part of a general PFI contract. (As you ask, in your case if the security you mentioned is private yes please can I request this data.)

• Where your trust does not operate a hospital site I am asking for the costs of any security hired for the protection of staff outside of hospital grounds such as outpatient visits.

• I am classing hospital/ambulance staff as those directly employed by the hospital or ambulance trust.

• I am classing non-hospital staff as patients, visitors, members of the public not employed by the trust.

• When I ask for the amount of attacks I am talking about the total number of physical and verbal assaults made by non-hospital staff (defined above) on hospital staff (defined above).

• Q3 is asking for a breakdown of these physical and verbal attacks by incident type. I am requesting this information where available and accept it will be recorded differently on a trust by trust basis.

• Can I request all the above information be provided by calendar year.

 Response

1/ How much money was spent by your trust on private security for the protection of staff in the following years?

CLCH has not incurred any costs between 2018-2023 for the hire of security for the protection of staff outside of clinical settings (e.g. hospitals and health centres). We have hired security guards from accredited firms to work in some of our clinical settings where there has been an identified need – please let us know should you require any information relating to this. Please note that where available, costs are aligned to financial years and not to calendar years.

 

2/ How many attacks were recorded on members hospital/ambulance staff by non-hospital staff in the same years?
See table below.

 

3/ If recorded, what was the nature of these incidents (verbal/physical/racial etc)?
See table below.

 

Incident Sub-category	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Disruptive or aggressive behaviour to staff by member of public	0	<5	20	36	29	22
Disruptive or aggressive behaviour to staff by non-CLCH staff	<5	0	12	19	31	30
Disruptive or aggressive behaviour to staff by patient	127	193	148	186	226	235
Disruptive or aggressive behaviour to staff by patient's relative	<5	<5	55	104	125	119
Physical assault to staff by member of public	0	<5	<5	<5	<5	<5
Physical Assault to Staff by non-CLCH staff	0	0	0	0	0	<5
Physical Assault to Staff by Patient	26	20	20	22	33	35
Physical assault to staff by patient's relative	0	0	<5	<5	0	<5
Racial abuse to staff by member of public	0	<5	<5	<5	0	<5
Racial abuse to staff by non-CLCH staff	0	<5	0	0	0	0
Racial Abuse to staff by patient	11	11	<5	13	17	24
Racial abuse to staff by patient's relative	0	<5	0	<5	<5	<5
Sexual abuse to staff by non-CLCH staff	0	0	<5	<5	0	<5
Sexual abuse to staff by patient	<5	<5	<5	8	8	14
Sexual abuse to staff by patient's relative	0	0	0	0	0	<5
Verbal abuse to staff by member of public	0	0	<5	8	10	<5
Verbal abuse to staff by non-CLCH staff	0	0	<5	<5	<5	<5
Verbal abuse to staff by patient	76	49	66	60	46	38
Verbal abuse to staff by patient's relative	0	0	14	20	32	23

 

Caveat:

• Sub-categories including ‘patient's relative’ as a perpetrator type were not added to the Trust’s incident reporting system until 2020.
• Sub-categories including ‘member of the public’ as a perpetrator type were not added to the Trust’s incident reporting system until 2020.
• Sub-categories including ‘non-CLCH staff’ as a perpetrator type were not added to the Trust’s incident reporting system until 2020.

 

Section 40 – Personal Information

Under section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, a public authority does not have to provide information where that information is considered personal information under the Data Protection Act 2018. We believe that, because of the low number of patients involved and the potential for them to be identified when combined with other available information, the information you have requested falls into this category, and therefore will not be supplying this as a result. Where data is 5 or below, the actual figure has been replaced with <5.