Ms Linda Kelly:

Just to affirm what people have said, staff on the ground do not feel there is any real value to the incident report. They do not feel any action is taken and it is a tick-the-box exercise from management that goes into a filing cabinet never to be looked at again. Because it is so common now, particularly the verbal aggression being experienced, people are desensitised to what is happening. It is taken as part of the work. If you want to work in this area, this is part of it and you are told to get on with it. If we are talking about a zero-tolerance approach, then employers need to take a significantly different approach to how they respond and react to assaults and verbal aggression in the workplace. It has to be meaningful. If they understood a bit more and listened to the lived experience of their staff, rather than trying to duck and weave away from the actual issues, it would be far more effective in terms of bringing about change.