Duncan Monica
Freelance Health Economist and Senior NHS Interim Manager.
Br J Community Nurs. 2019 Aug 2;24(8):377-379. doi: 10.12968/bjcn.2019.24.8.377.
District nurses and their teams often work in isolation during domiciliary visits. As employers, providers of district nursing services have responsibility to ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place to keep district nursing teams safe. If the employer fails to do everything that was reasonable in the circumstances to keep the employee safe, the employer can be deemed to have breached their duty of care. Employees also have responsibility for their own health and wellbeing at work, and they are entitled by law to refuse to undertake work that is not safe, without fear of disciplinary action. Staff training in risk management, personal safety, handling aggressive behaviour, using safety devices such as mobile phone trackers, incident reporting and debriefing are essential for district nurses and their teams, as they face a steeply increased demand for their services and a severely compromised skill mix within their teams.
地区护士及其团队在进行家访时常常独自工作。作为雇主，地区护理服务提供者有责任确保制定适当的政策和程序，以保障地区护理团队的安全。如果雇主未能在当时情况下尽一切合理努力保障员工安全，雇主可能会被视为违反了其照护职责。员工在工作中也对自身的健康和福祉负有责任，并且依法有权拒绝从事不安全的工作，而不必担心受到纪律处分。对地区护士及其团队而言，风险管理、个人安全、应对攻击性行为、使用手机追踪器等安全设备、事件报告和汇报总结等方面的员工培训至关重要，因为他们面临着对其服务的需求急剧增加以及团队技能组合严重不足的情况。
