Author: PAJ Waddington, Doug Badger and Ray Bull
ISBN No: 1 84392 168 4
Review date: 05/12/2025
No of pages: 204
Publisher: Willan
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Zero tolerance as a way to tackle violence against staff has its limits, according to a study.
The Violent Workplace arises from interviews with police officers, A&E staff, social workers and mental health staff. As the book suggests from its chapter titles, there are violent actions, violent people, and violent contexts. If I say to your face ‘I’ll kill you!’ it could even be witty, depending on context. If it’s spoken by someone with a history of violence, in their dingy home, with you in a corner, it’s threatening and could be the person’s way of trying to intimidate and control a situation. The authors suggest that pubs and clubs who gain from ‘alcohol-fuelled excess’ ‘should pay for the cost of providing A&E staff with as much ‘security’ as the pubs and clubs”. The authors are critical of the NHS’ zero tolerance campaign against violence, launched in 1999. Not only is there the problem of putting a tough-sounding policy into practice. Is zero tolerance the proper response to all acts of violence or uncivil behaviour, if the person is hurt or mentally ill? What the authors call ‘difficult encounters’ happen – security or police apprehend shoplifters, social workers take children away from homes. The book casts doubt on training staff to for instance de-escalate situations, and points out that for all police equipment, CS gas, batons and the like, police are seldom attacked. Rather, violence comes at efforts to restrain and arrest. Are the authors suggesting police back off? Equally, for all the physical and electronic security in hospital accident and emergency departments, people still ‘kick off’, whether they are drunk or drugged, they use violence to get their way – faster treatment – or they are otherwise law-abiding but in a rage over bad service. The authors are alive to these differences. Whatever, as the book notes, danger comes with some jobs. To be fair, the authors have insights – for ‘caring’ or other ‘professionals’ like police officers to risk themselves, as their duty, is one thing; for low-paid A&E receptionists to cop abuse, is another. And what of staff who normally do not encounter violence? such as one of the authors, Prof Waddington, of Reading University. He tells in a foreword how he was witness to an angry father, dropping his son at hall of residence. The father took offence that his son would have to pay extra rent for arriving early at the hall. The professor writes of the distress of staff after the incident, but does not wonder whether the father threatened to ‘have’ the prof, out of anger that the father was paying thousands for his son’s education and the prof was telling him to fork out even more! Now, at least one retailer has a policy of no questions asked about refunds. Despite the potential for customer fraud, the aggro is not seen as worth it. Perhaps the professor should try such flexibility?
