New initiatives to promote personal security for NHS workers
The NHS Stakeholder Implementation Group, which includes a wide range of NHS organisations, including the BDA, recently met. This group is hosted by the NHS Counter Fraud Security Management Service (NHS CFSMS).
Managing the security of NHS staff was a priority at the meeting, with the focus on a lone-worker initiative for hospital-based staff. This project, which is subsidised by the Department of Health, is being run initially for two-years and provides NHS lone workers with handsets for reporting security concerns. NHS Trusts across England have sent in bids to the NHS CFSMS for handsets and the initial 30,000 handsets will be distributed accordingly. It was also announced that funding had been agreed for a new centralised project to design a mechanism for reporting incidents by NHS Trusts.
