by Daniel Lombard
The UK government has agreed to formally recognise Workers Memorial Day, an international day of commemoration for people who have been killed or injured at work, on 28 April.
The decision follows a campaign by Unison to improve safety for social care workers on behalf of its 350,000 members in the sector.
Following two fatal attacks on support workers by service users in the last four years - Phillip Ellison in Lancashire and Ashleigh Ewing in Sunderland - Unison are keen to ensure that the government's support for the memorial day is backed up with action to increase protection for frontline workers.
A spokesperson for the union, which represents 350,000 social care workers in the UK, said: "Our network of health and safety reps have campaigned long and hard for a day to commemorate people who have been injured, disabled, made ill or lost their lives as a result of carrying out their work. Too many workers are suffering from injuries gained in the workplace. By marking Workers Memorial Day nationally, will act as a reminder for all employers that they they need have a legal duty to protect their staff.
"Time and again we have called on employers to provide proper risk assessments for their employees. Our members have a right to be made as safe as possible at work. We are urging the local government employers to keep a central register of all attacks so that we can assess the extent of the problem and deal with it appropriately."
its disgusting i provide services to our local authority and the amount of times i have reported concerns to team managers about the clients who we provide contact supervision for regarding their mental health, especially when the client is talking and ranting to themseves in the contact. THIS IS IGNORED!! Its not until when the client serious assaults someone that they sit up. It has happenned far too often. Ive had team managers laugh when staff have been out with clients on contact and the parents are shop lifting with thier kids!! they dont care if our staff get arrested when they are only doing there job. They say in the interest of the child but what about the workers- they are someones child too arent they??
I think this could be important, and hope that it may be extended to those that died in such a manner in earlier years. For example in Haringey in the mid 80's a social worker was murdered by a mentally ill service user, a number of her ex colleagues [like myself] are still employed in the public sector.
Part of the commemoration day could be to remind everyone of the lessons learned - from Norma's death it was agreed that single workers should not undertake MH assessments alone - I doubt such safe practice is still adhered to, but why not?
i work for a charity and deal with drug addictions from the day you start there is training reg lone working,how come social servicies dont do this