Following many of my blogs, most of you will be able to sense that I’m rather passionate when it comes to the protection of domestic frontline professionals.

For me ‘domestic frontline professionals’ are those guys that have chosen a profession to protect, serve and secure our countries and its citizens ‘internally’.  It’s a massive group of professionals representing a variety of sectors… e.g. police, border control, prison, immigration, private security, facility management, public transport… as well as Mental Health Care professionals and similar sectors.

This blog is dedicated to those who don’t directly ‘secure’ our countries or citizens ‘internally’, but those who have chosen a truly amazing profession, understanding the reasonable levels of risk every day they go to work.  I am talking about mental Health Care and Health Care Professionals, special educational needs teachers and others who deal with challenging behaviour.

Going back in time just a bit…  on 6th July 2011 a large group of employees gathered at the entrance of Metropolitan State Hospital, in Norwalk, California, to protest the unsafe working conditions at this California Department of Mental Health (DMH) hospital.

After psychiatric technician Donna Gross was killed by a patient in October the year before in the nearby Napa State Hospital, many mental Health care professionals at the Metropolitan State Hospital reported that many of the same safety problems that contributed to the death of Donna Gross are also present at their hospital.

In a harrowing video that surfaced a while back, a 68-year-old hospital patient attacks a group of nurses with a pipe pulled from his bed. They flee through a nearby door in a streak of rainbow scrubs, but the patient pursues and lands several more blows on one fallen nurse in the hallway.

This assault is far from an isolated incident. Health care workers are punched, kicked, scratched, bitten, spat on, threatened and harassed by patients or now called service users’ with surprising regularity. In a 2014 survey, almost 80 percent of nurses in the U.S. reported being attacked on the job within the past year. Health care workers experience the most nonfatal workplace violence related injuries compared to other professions by a wide margin, that’s according to widely available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Here in the UK this is not much different.  Having personally met a number of highly experienced mental health care professionals at two of the only three high secure hospitals in England, I can confirm that numerous incidents of similar significance have been recorded here as well.

A study of 69 NHS trusts and private hospitals in England and Wales carried out a few years ago said that some 46% of nurses in mental health wards for working age patients said they had been assaulted.

To make this crystal clear here, I am fully aware that those committing the assaults are not always ‘bad people’. Having said that… clearly they could bad through and through, but in many cases they are not.

However, violent incidents within these sectors/fields although underreported, are a substantial problem and really deserve our attention. Aggression and violent action might arise from dementia, delirium, injury to the head and brain, tumour, substance and alcohol abuse and withdrawal, mental health conditions and learning disabilities. It may also result from other factors, such as bereavement, anxiety and fear or adverse reactions to medication and treatment.

So what can we do to protect those professionals, who without a doubt do an extraordinary job every day they come to work?

Violence prevention programs reduce the risk of assault by training workers to recognise frequent cues, such as drug use and threatening body language, and educating them about strategies to help defuse situations. Precise incident reporting is a crucial part of this type of intervention, as it helps hospitals identify specific hazards, such as poor lighting, understaffing, and inadequate safety training, and take steps to remedy them.

Well, there is no doubt that offering realistic and effective training such as conflict management, conflict resolution and physical intervention training must be priority and is of great importance, but what is about Personal Protective Clothing or equipment?

Ultra-lightweight body armour have recently been developed in order to offer effective protection from punches, kicks and other types of blows using blunt objects.  Based on countless incident records, reports and statements this is without any question the most ‘likely’ type of assault mental health care professionals will suffer from when being assaulted.

A link to a unique type of body armour, designed and manufactured by PPSS Group, offering an exceptional high level of protection from such risk as well as from edged weapon can be found here:  click here

Clearly… if a firearm or edged weapon is being used in such attack the security service of that facility needs a bit of a talking to I guess.

Having said that… ‘improvised edged weapon’ e.g. broken DVD’s or light bulbs, as well as razor blades are found frequently in such environment. What a nightmare to control, search and find these nasty things.

However, as stated just second ago professionals working within mental secure health care facilities or schools specialised within severe learning disabilities, challenging behaviour, special needs or autism, are frequently subject to a type of assault that leads to blunt trauma injuries.

The second most ‘likely’ type of assault mental health care workers and teachers specialised in the above fields may face is the threat/risk of a human bite. I can talk about several stories involving human bites, including stories which include myself.

I remember that day pretty well… ending up in a hospital for blood tests… with my wife joining me at that hospital… being told by the doctor I will have a ‘result’ in 14 days.

These 14 days have been an interesting time. Interesting conversations between me and my wife took place. I knew I haven’t slept with another person… I knew I had not taken any illegal drugs via any hypodermic needles or in any other form… and still there was that risk of Hepatitis C and HIV (AIDS) etc that was in my head every single day.  That guy who bit me didn’t look as when he took immense care in his personal hygiene… so 14 days had to go by until I was given the all clear.

After having listened to so many other similar stories I gave the instructions to create a new brand within my firm called BitePRO, a brand of clothing and arm guards offering protection from human bites. To view a dedicated website please click on the following image:

We have utilised our very own high performance fabric Cut-Tex® PRO to create these garments to improve the personal safety of these professionals and protect them from potentially life threatening infections and viruses following a human bite.

I strongly believe that personal protective clothing is something that can effectively reduce the risk of workplace violence related injuries. However, my emphasis would be of issuing personal protective clothing that is none-aggressive or none-confrontational looking.  We certainly want to enable those professionals to let their personality shine, use their diplomatic and interpersonal skills in order to defuse the risk of any potential escalation without giving away that protective clothing is being worn.  We certainly do not want them to look like ‘the aggressor’.

Personal protective clothing just needs to ‘be there’ in the background, on standby, ready to protect and perform when things go wrong.

If you want to speak with me or my team about body armour or BitePRO™ Clothing & Arm Guards and how they potentially can help you within your line of work… please call +44 (0) 845 5193 953 or email [email protected] or visit www.ppss-group.com or visit directly www.biteresistantarmguards.com

Stay safe!