Health workers' union calls for extension of staff protection project

Public services union UNISON is calling on the Scottish Executive to extend the "Guardian Angel" project which it sees as a useful tool in helping to reduce potentially violent incidents against health workers.

The project, piloted at St John's Hospital in West Lothian, is designed to protect staff from the risk of violence when they make home visits. Over 300 nurses, occupational therapists and health visitors are covered by the scheme. When they make home visits they place the name and address of the patient/client and the duration of their visit on a paging system. If they do not contact the switchboard after their visit an alarm system begins to operate.

The system makes it possible to listen to 45 seconds of conversation between the worker and the patient/client. This could be vital if they were being confronted by a patient who, for example, had produced a knife.

Speaking at UNISON's Scottish health and safety conference, Jim Devine said "This pilot has been operational for many months now and our members are claiming it to be a great success. It adds to their security when visiting clients/patients in their homes, when in some cases no previous information on the individual's background is known."