In today's episode of the Front Desk podcast, our hosts, Bradley and Alex, welcome Shaun Bainbridge, security liaison manager, non-clinical risk team, at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to discuss safety in a workplace.
As our guest explains, keeping staff safe and establishing preventive security measures is the number one priority of every organization. Aside from creating projects and adopting policies, managers must develop a culture of communication within their teams. In the last year, the outbreak of COVID-19 was the flywheel for many conversations regarding employees' safety.
During the episode, Shaun shares alarming statistics from the NHS 2019 staff survey. According to the national survey, 28.5% of staff in the NHS experienced harassment, bullying, or abuse from patients or their relatives. Nearly 15% of staff suffered from violent acts, and only 49% reported those incidents.
Bradley, Alex, and Shaun also take a deeper dive into the role of technology in the area of safety. Shaun believes that "technology is always going to be a leading light in how we move forward."
Being open to innovation is the key to success. However, as Shaun explains, some things take time, and mistakes are inevitable. "We can all make mistakes every single day. It's about learning from those mistakes and making sure we try our best, so those mistakes don't happen in the future."
This episode of The Front Desk was brought to you by The Little Green Button - The original on-screen panic button software designed to keep staff safe. Reassurance that a helping hand is just a click away.