QEH: Security guards get ready for patrols
QEH Security Group
A team of security guards are getting ready to protect hospital staff and patients at Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Officers from Securitas will be giving round the clock protection from 6am on Monday.
Previously hospital porters had doubled up to act as security but the hospital trust took the decision last year to employ specialists.
A new staff induction on Monday allowed the team to get to know the hospital layout.
A hospital spokesman said: “In general terms security has never been as much of an issue here as, for example, inner city hospitals.
“Even so, we have a duty of care to our patients and staff and we have to ensure that an adequate level of protection is in place for the occasions when there are problems.
“The team from Securitas is being regarded very much as part of the wider hospital team and will be providing a polite but reassuring presence.”
The trust follows the NHS’s zero tolerance to safeguarding staff from assault or abuse.
The security team will be wearing stab vests under their shirts and blazers.
They will patrol high profile areas such as accident and emergency.
Last year it was revealed that the number of attacks on staff had doubled over the past four years.
The figures were revealed in a national report from NHS Protect, which was published in November last year, and state that only 46 assaults were reported on staff in 2006-7, compared with 92 in the past year.
The increase was put down to staff being willing to report incidents of assault and verbal abuse.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North
