- Conference
- 2003 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 1 December 2002
- Decision
- Carried
This conference is extremely concerned to note the continuing and increasing incidence of assaults on Ambulance Staffs. It welcomes the Government’s zero tolerance campaign aimed at reducing violence towards NHS staffs in general, but notes that frontline Ambulance Staffs remain particularly and unacceptably vulnerable.
It therefore calls for a greater degree of consistency of approach across all Ambulance Trusts to address these problems:
i.A review of training programs at all levels including induction, qualifications, post proficiency and paramedics to include awareness and avoidance of potentially violent situations;
ii.A joint campaign to raise public awareness of the unacceptability of such assaults and to seek the necessary legislation to make assaults on Ambulance staffs a specific category of offence in law as for those assaults committed on Police Officers;
iii.Effective liaison and agreement with the Police over their response to requests for assistance, the details of which must be communicated effectively to all Ambulance staff.
iv.