GV Health’s strategy to prevent violence and aggression

By Djembe Archibald

Feb 14, 2024

Safer environment: GV Health has seen a significant decrease in violent and aggressive incidents in 2023. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

In the 2022-23 GV Health annual report, it was noted that 10 occupational violence and aggression incidents were reported.

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Compared to other hospitals, this is a particularly low figure, with Albury-Wodonga Health reporting 717 during 2023 and Kyabram District Health Service reporting 110 incidents in 2023.

It is also a significant decrease from the hospital’s numbers during the 2020-21 period, with reported incidents sitting at 223.

The News reached out to GV Health health, safety and wellbeing manager Mitchell Dunn to see how the hospital has kept the number at less than one incident a month.

“To ensure the safety of staff and patients, GV Health has implemented several security measures over the last three years,” Mr Dunn said.

“These include 24-hour on-staff security guards at the Graham St site, fixed and mobile duress alarms to alert security guards to any potential threats, staff training, planned code greys, procedure and process reviews, promotion of proactive actions, flags and alerts for patients with a history of past occupational violence towards our staff.”

He also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic did affect the number of incidents of occupational violence and aggression.

“The periodic mandated visitor restrictions in place across healthcare services in Victoria during this period affected consumer, family and loved ones’ treatment of GV Health staff in some cases,” Mr Dunn said.

“GV Health’s high focus on occupational violence and aggression prevention, extensive efforts to educate staff on intolerance for violence, and the active promotion of planned code greys as a proactive measure rather than a reactionary one are all factors that have driven GV Health’s comparatively lower rates than some other health services.

“Additionally, data analysis has been enhanced, allowing for a more in-depth examination of occupational violence and aggression consumer profiles in terms of the services they are engaging with and root causes, which sometimes relate to their medical conditions.”

Mr Dunn said GV Health’s work would not stop now that the numbers were low, with goals to continue to train staff and monitor occupational violence and aggression.

“This proactive approach aims to address issues effectively and prevent incidents of occupational violence and aggression,” he said.

“This is something we will continue to have a significant focus on, as it remains a key workplace safety issue for the health service.”