But the chair of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine New Zealand, Michael Connelly, said that whether or not the numbers were rising, the fact that there were still reports of violence was a concern.
“Emergency departments are supposed to be a place of healing. There’s people dedicated to trying to improve the lives of patients … we want them to be able to work in a situation and an environment that’s safe for them.”
Connelly said the violence experienced by those on the front line can range from verbal assaults to threats to staff, to physical contact and physical harm.
He described EDs as “pressure cookers” and said addressing issues such as bed block might take some stress out of the situation, which could reduce some of the causes that result in these types of behaviour.
Connelly said it was not acceptable that staff were subject to them.
He said there’d been a “long-standing” culture that violence was just part of ED life, but health authorities were trying to reverse that and encourage people to report all incidents.
“Traditionally, there’s talk that it’s too cumbersome to make the report, or nothing would be done about it – and I feel like the tide is changing in that sense.”
Connelly said anything that could be done to make it easier for reporting, and also not put the onus on the victim, would be appropriate.
Funding in the past two Budgets has been put towards more security guards in emergency departments across the country and training for staff.
Connelly said it was a good move, and there had been improvement in some places.
But he said there were still problems with smaller EDs, where the security staff might be covering the entire hospital, not just the ED, or weren’t trained properly.
Robyn Shearer, Health New Zealand’s executive national director, people & culture and health & safety, said no level of violence was acceptable, and staff had the right to feel safe at work.
She said the rise in reported assaults reflected the increasing accuracy of reporting.
“Reported incidents … have increased [but] injuries and time lost to injuries has remained stable, so this suggests earlier intervention, better de-escalation and improved response are reducing the severity of harm.”
Shearer said patients might behave unpredictably for a range of reasons, clinical or otherwise, and it was not possible to eliminate incidents.
“We are putting in place robust processes and escalation pathways to minimise the risk of harm, and we are actively encouraging staff to report all incidents and aggression.
“Over the past three years, we’ve introduced more training, increased awareness and made it easier for our frontline staff to report incidents.”
One of those ways is with OV readers, which have been implemented in EDs in the Northern and Te Waipounamu regions.
These allow staff to swipe that an incident has occurred, but do not differentiate when multiple staff have swiped their identity cards for the same incident.
Shearer said they were not the solution totally, because they did not capture the severity, context or contributing factors which can be learned from.
“We’re reviewing how they fit alongside other mechanisms.”
She said there could be tools and measures, but staff training was really important.
That included things like situational awareness, confidence to act quickly when situations escalated, communication, facility design, and vigilance around reducing violence and aggression in the workplace.
Danica MacLean is an Auckland-based news director and senior reporter for Newstalk ZB, with a focus on health stories. She joined NZME in 2017, initially working for the Northern Advocate before switching to radio. She has previously worked for Stuff in Northland.