Posted on behalf of Together We’re Better Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent:
Staff from across the NHS have been experiencing a rising tide in abuse as services struggle to recover from the pandemic and create the new normal.
To counter this, we have been creating the ‘Together Against Abuse’ campaign.
Anecdotally, levels of abuse have risen sharply in recent weeks and months, leading to staff members feeling they can no longer work for our services, and forcing some to sadly leave their jobs.
The campaign will reflect the fact that the abuse is across the system, there will be an emphasis on issues facing primary care.
Working with partners, and with NHSEI, we have created a campaign that aims to discourage this disrespectful behaviour towards hardworking staff.
For the start of the campaign, we are releasing an audio montage/video of primary care staff – mainly receptionists – talking about their experiences. None will be named. In total more than a dozen staff were interviewed at four different practices across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. A press release has also been released to launch the campaign, and both this and the video have been signed off by NHSEI.
The campaign will issue new material for the following two weeks before taking a break for Christmas and New Year. It will then relaunch in January 2022.
The toolkit is available here: Together against abuse toolkit wc 291121
Other material will include:
- The experience of 999 call handlers
- A GP who leads on signposting describing the importance of the care navigator roll
- A message from the police about how primary care can most fruitfully interact with them
- An interview with the CCGs’ primary care security consultant
We recognise the risk that this could possibly pose towards recruitment, but feel that, right now, we need to act to show the existing workforce that we care and are here to support them. We hope that this will help with staff retention, at a time when we are seeing more and more staff wanting to, or actually leaving their roles.
Already we have buy-in from the partners, and have several more videos in the pipeline, to spotlight the likes of WMAS, UHNM, UHDB, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, the role of care navigators, and we hope that more partners will come on board once this is launched.
There is also funding for paid-for advertising through Facebook.
If your service would like to get involved, please let us know by emailing [email protected]. In addition, please feel free to use the attached toolkit to help us promote this campaign.
