The body responsible for the security of NHS staff has insisted it is on track to hit targets for training all NHS employees in conflict resolution.
This week Personnel Today revealed that almost nine of out 10 frontline NHS employees still had not received any conflict resolution training even though almost half of the allotted time for the scheme to be implemented has already passed.
In April 2004, the Department of Health instructed the NHS Security Management Service (NHS SMS) to train 750,000 employees in techniques to calm potentially violent situations as well as recognising the triggers of violent behaviour.
All these staff are supposed to receive guidance by 2008, but so far only 85,000 have received any training, which is carried out by NHS SMS trainers and other organisations that have been licensed by the service to carry out instruction.
However, the NHS SMS insisted that 252,000 frontline NHS staff would be trained in conflict resolution by March 2006.
Training plans for 2005/06 have been received from 95% of NHS bodies in England and they suggest the NHS SMS is still on schedule to train 750,000 frontline NHS staff by 2008, the body said in a statement.
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Alex Nagle, director of NHS SMS, said: “Implementing a national programme such as this, and from scratch, is never easy but when it involves 750,000 people, at thousands of sites, all with complex and different training needs, the task is even harder.
“Today’s figures show the progress made in this very ambitious project. With some health bodies still to send us their plans, we expect that the number trained by the March 2006 will be even higher than predicted today,” he said.
