Daily Insight: Caught on camera

Stories of paramedics wearing body cameras for their own safety in the face of rising aggression and violence from service users and the public have become increasingly common.

But news this week that clinical staff working in frailty wards at a major London acute trust would given to them was more unusual and shocking.

Matthew Trainer, chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust, spoke at an event last week and described how violence and aggression from families and other members of the public against his staff are going “through the roof”.

From January, staff working in the emergency department including frailty wards will be wearing cameras and security presence will also be stepped up, particularly for the ultrasound and sonography department, where tensions have become heightened.

It is hoped that the cameras will both act as a deterrent for poor behaviour and also be used if a staff member is abused or attacked while at work and the trust is clear this will be their only purpose.

Unions appear to disagree on their use, with the Royal College of Nursing pointing to a fairly small pool of evidence that they make staff feel safer, whereas Unison raises issues around privacy and the need to tackle the root of the violence. 

Time for training

Implementing an electronic patient record across a trust is not for the faint-hearted.

Implementing an EPR across two trusts simultaneously is an even greater challenge.

That challenge has been particularly difficult at Royal Surrey Foundation Trust and Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals FT, which went live with Oracle Cerner’s EPR in May 2022.

Since then, the trusts have been plagued with issues that have – in some cases – led to patients being harmed.

Taking staff with you on an EPR transformation is clearly among the most important factors to success, but figures obtained by HSJ reveal just half of staff were fully trained in the week leading up to go-live.

The trust said it prioritised training staff who were on duty in the first two weeks, which is logical – but chiefs were undoubtedly disappointed not to reach a higher overall number by the go-live day.

Finding the time for staff to attend training is difficult alone, and the post-implementation problems will be down far more than just training numbers.

But the lessons from Surrey are worth looking at closely, especially at a time when many trusts are implementing or optimising EPRs to become more digitally mature.