WORD - BASED PROJECT

Assignment - Management

Assignment - Management

Introduction

This research project is concerned with studying the violent behaviour towards the employees of the West London mental health NHS trust. The violent behaviour comes from patients who pose a physical threat on account of their clinical condition. The policies of the West London mental health NHS trust state that such aggressive behaviour due to the mental illnesses of the patients is to be handled in consultation with the staff and other mental health specialist. There is a need to ensure safe and secure working practices that should be duly followed by all the employees of the trust from nurses to doctors to other health specialist. All have a binding responsibility to ensure the safety of the patients. This project will attempt to provide a guideline to the trust in managing aggressive behaviour from the patients through effective interventions which would help avoid risks to the medical staff, especially the nurses who are the most vulnerable persons on account of their longer period of interactions with the patients. Aggressive behaviours by the patients is one of the root cause of injury or stress to the medical health workers that in turn has an impact on the quality of services being dispensed buy the hospital on a whole.

The health workers along with the aggressive behaviour of the patients face other incidents of stress which may stem from other reasons apart from those pertaining to patients. They could be the result of financial strains of the hospitals or could be due to changes in the policy of the hospital regarding its employees.

This project applies to all the employees of the west London mental health NHS trust and aims to convince the trust in adopting an active approach that would help protect their employees from enduring stress due to incidents of aggression by patients. The final objective would be to ensure an environment where the medical staff is able to work in an environment free of the fear of being physically assaulted.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of violent behaviour of mental patients and the resulting implications on the employees of West London mental health NHS trust.

Research Objectives

This paper will focus on the following research objectives:

To ensure the overall safety of the patients, including equipping employees with proper skills in order to handle the aggressive behaviour of patients.

To determine the nature of difficulties faced by employees, especially nurses who are adversely affected by the aggressive behaviour of patients.

Identify ways of ensuring the workplace environment as free from any coercion and any form of fear from patients.

Background of the Study

Aggressive behaviour by patients that results in violence against the medical staff especially nurses is a widespread phenomenon. It has been widely reported. The medical staff especially the nurses is not well equipped to cope with the physically violent behaviour of mental patients. The medical staff, along with media and researchers has outlined the menace of aggressive behaviours in ...