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#1 Posted : 13 September 2001 14:17:00(UTC)
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Posted By Brian J Sutherland I circulate information relating to incidents of violence that have occurred to our employees for information in line with requirements of the HASAW Act etc etc. No problem, but are you aware that under the section of the DP Act 1998 "Fair Collection of Information" you have to inform any individuals named on your list of their inclusion and that they have been flagged as potentially violent! Additionally, information on who the list is circulated to, why they have been included and when they will be removed. Check it out on www.dataprotection.gov.uk. Anyone complying?
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#2 Posted : 13 September 2001 14:52:00(UTC)
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Posted By Nick Higginson Brian, We have had problems with this. I work for utility company, and are not allowed to mark customers as violent or dangerous. We got around it by simply putting a "red flag" on screen for these properties, but without a remark. The dispatcher then knows that a red flag means a 2 man call. My advice always was that if we had to not comply with one of the Acts (DP or HSWA), I would ignore DP every time. Of course the best way is to comply with both, but it is difficult to be providing employees with information and instruction (HSWA) without naming individuals or properties (DP). Regards, Nick
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#3 Posted : 13 September 2001 15:52:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ashley Williams Im surprised that your council havent sorted this out before now. I used to work in the DSS Group and they were onto it from day one, which is a surprise for them. If not much has already been put into place, It may be worth contacting them via your Housing benefit fraud manager and seeing what they are dooing by you. Ashley
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#4 Posted : 14 September 2001 09:33:00(UTC)
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Posted By Bryn Maidment Brian Like many other Trusts mine has a problem with violence and aggression. Leaving aside the legal imperatives under DP any idiot who pops off at staff (verbal abuse, threats and physical abuse)has their name logged, and if a patient, are tagged on the patient dtabase. Just imagine the claim for negligence from a member of staff who has been attacked by a patient who has also attacked other staff and that info was not passed on or available - high risk of a successful claim probably citing 'safe systems of work', 'provision of information' & 'suitable and sufficient risk assessment' There is an obvious conflict between the two Acts in this respect but organisations must give all staff suitable information on violent people. Safety professionals have a justified argument in these circumstances, as opposed to the 'civil liberties' crowd. You may get around it by having posters displayed informing all people that they will be noted if they play up. At the very least have an unspecified tag on records and an unwritten rule that everyone knows the tag to mean 'violent or abusive'. You owe more to your staff than to some unstable loon!!
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#5 Posted : 23 September 2001 11:53:00(UTC)
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Posted By Tim Davies I've been providing training in this area for many years and the point you raise is discussed on just about every course. A decent incident reporting procedure, coupled with advance information from warning markers is crucial, it isn't enough to say all should be treated as PV and provide training on that basis. The training itself may not be 'adequate' for some PV's. A way to deal is to inform the PV person about thier behaviour, there should be no surprises for the PV anyway, and if they are not happy at being labelled PV then they change their behaviour. Too many orgs concentrate too much on the PV and not the front line worker. Flag them, colour code them or whatever is necessary and if they wish to see it, explain why they are flagged etc and let them decide about how to progress. A letter suggesting possible outcomes of inappropraite behaviour in the past gets everything out in the open and lets face it, if there is a record on the PV, they are 'known' so why try and hide things! Link in IR, assessments, information sharing protocols with other agencies and so on and look after those the matter. The PV's know they are potential violent anway so who are we kidding with codes etc. Tim
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