The Royal College of Nursing in Northern Ireland has welcomed the launch of consultations on whistleblowing and violence and aggression in health and care settings.
The consultations, announced by Northern Ireland’s health minister Robin Swann, will seek views on how health and social care staff may be protected, and how to provide an environment in which they feel safe and confident to raise concerns.
“If we are unable to protect our nursing staff, this will have devastating consequences for a system already operating under unbearable pressure"
Rita Devlin, director of the RCN in Northern Ireland, said: “The RCN welcomes both of these consultations.
“While violence and aggression against nursing staff was a problem long before the pandemic, reports from RCN members confirm that these concerns have grown over the last two years.”
The RCN employment survey in 2021 found that almost a third of RCN members in Northern Ireland had experienced physical abuse from patients or relatives over the previous 12 months and two-thirds had experienced verbal abuse.
The consultation on violence and aggression in the workplace is centred around a new policy framework, which the RCN helped to draft.
Ms Devlin said it had taken four years to get to this stage of the consultation, which she described as "extremely frustrating" and appealed for work to now move faster.
“Employers have a duty to provide a safe working environment where nurses feel that incidents will be dealt with quickly...
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