Violence and aggression

The GHSL led a series of forums with social sector agencies focussing on the key scenarios in which this risk presents, and the systems and controls in place to manage this.

The forums highlighted a need and an interest for greater focus on preventative measures as well as innovative detection mechanisms, both within the social sector and more broadly. Key areas of interest relate to service design, technology, and data and insights (including information sharing). 

Here is the Social Sector Safety Forum Report.

Cross-sector defintions

 

A working group from across a number of agencies helped us to develop this set of definitions for violent and aggressive (V&A) behaviours. These are intended to help us all speak the same language when talking about risks, describing incidents and looking at controls.

One key aspect of these definitions is the distinction between intentional and unintentional behaviours. This is not intended to match the legal definitions or change how instances of V&A are managed within internal and legal processes but is intended as a consideration when thinking about the different agency contexts, for example healthcare, where unintentional V&A is a more common occurrence.