Body Worn Video Public Consultation Phase 2
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust (NIAS) conducted a public consultation designed to examine the principle of introducing body worn video for the purposes of violence prevention and reduction between 6 December 2021 and 14 February 2022. As part of this consultation, we undertook to carry out a further consultation to consider more detailed factors like deployment, usage, governance, policy and procedure, subject to a positive outcome to this initial consultation.
I am pleased to say there was a positive and supportive response to the initial consultation on the principle of introducing body worn video. Respondents to the consultation recognised the importance of prevention and reduction of violence and aggression, and that NIAS has a statutory duty to keep staff safe. A summary report of the consultation results, and the main themes identified from written feedback, public meetings and questions posted on social media can be found below (Consultation Summary).
We now intend to carry out a pilot of the use of body worn video and, informed by comments made by consultees during the initial consultation, we have developed a second consultation document on the Deployment Plan (see below). The purpose of this second consultation is to seek your views on this plan.
An Easy Read version of the consultation document will also be published. If you have any queries about the document, and its availability in alternative formats (including Braille, disk, audio cassette and minority languages) please contact:
Equality Team
Telephone: 07810 636990
E-mail: john.gow@nias.hscni.net
A separate consultation questionnaire document is also available below for you to complete, but we would welcome your comments in any format. Please send your comments to:
Body Worn Video Public Consultation
Equality & Public Involvement Office
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health & Social Care Trust
Site 30
Knockbracken Healthcare Park
Saintfield Road
BELFAST
BT8 8SG
Email: consultation@nias.hscni.net
Telephone: (028) 9040 0999
Textphone: (028) 9040 0871
If you would like an opportunity to discuss any aspect of the consultation, please contact bwv@nias.hscni.net.
The closing date for comments is Friday 22 July 2022.
Michael Bloomfield
Chief Executive
Body Worn Cameras Consultation
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) is consulting on the principle of the use of body worn video cameras for staff (for violence prevention and reduction purposes).
Last year, we launched our Strategy to Transform 2020-2026, which identified a number of key priorities and how we intend to transform our service to deliver these and improve the care we provide for our patients.
One of our key priorities is in relation to our workforce and, in particular, addressing the safety of our staff as we go about our normal day-to-day activities.
In 2020/21 a total of 629 incidents of violence and aggression were recorded against our staff. Staff safety is paramount and the Trust takes violence and aggression towards any member of staff very seriously.
Over the past year, our Violence Prevention and Reduction Group has been developing a supporting strategy to provide the Trust with a range of specific projects and reviews which have identified a number of key actions that will help drive change. One of these projects is to consider the implementation of Body Worn Video (BWV).
This initial consultation process is designed to examine the principle of BWV being introduced to NIAS. While initial draft assessments of equality, human rights, rural needs and privacy impacts have been conducted, and skeleton frameworks for deployment and usage – including high-level approaches to governance are outlined, it is the Trust’s intention to complete and consider this first consultation exercise about the principle of BWV, after which – subject to positive consultation engagement – a second consultation exercise would then be undertaken in 2022 that fully considers the detail of factors like deployment, usage, governance, policy and procedure. The Trust recognises the scale of culture shift involved in the proposal that NIAS employees would wear portable recording devices. That is why the second consultation will be informed by this current exercise.
To view the Consultation on the Documentation of Body Worn Video please click here
To view the questionnaire click here
To view Body Worn Video DPIA click here
To view NIAS BWV Consultation Easy Read Document click here
To view Body Worn Video Consultation Public Meetings Poster click here
To view BODY WORN VIDEO Deployment Plan click here
To view Body Worn Video Public Consultation Phase 2 Questions click here
To view Ch Ex Letter BWV Consultation click here
To view Consultation Summary BWV V.2 click here
NIAS launches “Community of Lifesavers Education Programme”
NIAS Consultation on Fleet Strategy 2020 – 2025 Preparing for our Future
We wish to engage with you on our updated Fleet Strategy proposals which has today been published both externally on the NIAS website and internally on SharePoint. The Fleet Strategy has been developed to compliment and support the implementation of the Trust’s Strategy to Transform. In addition to describing our fleet replacement programme the Strategy sets out how we will ensure our fleet has the right profile to support effective provision of service whilst reducing our impact on the environment over the coming years.
We want to hear your views and opinions and invite you to respond to our consultation by completing and returning our Fleet Strategy consultation engagement feedback questions which can be found alongside the Fleet Strategy Engagement document on the links below:
Fleet Strategy Engagement Document
Fleet Strategy - Engagement Questions V0.3
Our preference would be for written responses to be submitted by email to mignonne.smith@nias.hscni.net
The closing date for receipt of responses is Wednesday 12 May 2021.
As a key stakeholder, your opinions are important to us and I look forward to receiving your responses to this important strategy document.
We must fix our appalling waiting lists – together (NIAS Rebuild Plan April 2021-June 2021)
Health Minister Robin Swann has detailed his ambitions for the re-building of Northern Ireland’s health service, while stressing the need for sustained investment to deliver the plans.
Mr Swann informed MLAs that detailed plans are being finalised on both waiting times and cancer care. These will shortly be issued for public consultation, as will a review of urgent and emergency care.
Today also sees the publication of the latest Trust rebuilding plans for health and social care, covering the period April to June.
The Health Minister said the COVID-19 pandemic has had a “significant impact” on “our already appalling waiting lists”. It had also “highlighted serious long established fragilities in our health and social care system, especially in terms of staffing capacity”.
He told the Assembly: “Our health service prides itself on being available to all, free at the point of access. I will today contend that we are in grave danger of undermining this essential feature of our health service. With ever growing waiting lists – I would question whether all of our citizens have adequate access to the health services they need?”
The Minister continued: “To address this burning issue, I will in the near future be publishing for consultation a cancer recovery plan, an elective care framework and the urgent and emergency care review. Our great staff want us to be ambitious about the future of health and social care.
“They want us to build back better, to learn the lessons of the pandemic in terms of capacity, resilience and investment. I share that ambition 100 per cent. I believe the people of Northern Ireland do too.
“However, without a significant and recurrent funding commitment from the Executive, I fear that we will be severely restricted in our ability to deliver. We will be fighting the scourge of waiting lists with at least one hand tied behind our backs.
“We must start putting this right. It is a long-term task and it needs long-term, recurrent funding.”
Describing the current single year budgetary position as “extremely disappointing”, Mr Swann stated: “The present funding model which we operate within is not fit for purpose. What is really needed is a multi-year budget and unfortunately the Executive hasn’t received this from Westminster.”
He continued: “To properly put waiting lists right, we will clearly need more staff in our health service. But how can you recruit additional people to the workforce if there’s no certainty you’ll have the money to keep paying them next year?
“How do you sign up more young people for the required years of training on the basis of single year funding?
“I recognise there are many pressing rival demands on the public purse in Northern Ireland. Huge issues face every Department. I fully accept that the Executive has limited room for manoeuvre in budget terms. Decisions are taken in London and we have to play the cards we are dealt.
“However, I cannot think of a more pressing issue facing us than waiting times. It cries out for action. It is a daily rebuke to the standing of this House and to the reputation of politics.
“It leaves thousands and thousands of our people in avoidable pain – our fellow citizens, our neighbours. We owe it to them to do much, much better.”
The Trust rebuilding plans include elective (planned) care being prioritised regionally. Mr Swann told MLAs elective surgery will be prioritised in line with greatest clinical need, and will not be dependent on a patient’s postcode.
Detailing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Minister said: “It was not lockdown that added to waiting lists and led to much-needed operations being postponed. It was the virus. Our system, like systems all over the world, simply could not maintain a normal service, given the surge in patients requiring life-saving and immediate intervention. Staff had to be redeployed. Agonising choices had to be made.
“This was not about prioritising one condition over another. It was about providing care to the sickest patients quickest. It was about maintaining ICU care for everyone who required it, COVID and non COVID patients alike.”
In relation to cancer treatments impacted by the pandemic, the Minister said “the vast majority of patients that experienced a delay from January to March this year have since had their treatment completed or have a confirmed plan in place”.
Mr Swann also detailed actions taken to protect elective services as much as possible. These have included establishing Northern Ireland’s first regional Day Procedure Centre at Lagan Valley Hospital. This Day Procedure Centre has been providing support for the region, particularly for urgent cancer diagnostic work.
Similarly, surgeons from across Northern Ireland have been travelling to the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen to provide surgery that could not be provided at other sites due to the numbers of COVID positive inpatients. Northern Ireland-wide regional approaches to the prioritisation of surgery and to orthopaedic surgery have also been progressed.
The Cancer Recovery Plan being finalised is entitled “Building Back; Rebuilding Better”. It will make recommendations to redress the disruption to cancer services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Recovery Plan will be aligned with the longer-term Cancer Strategy being developed for NI and will focus on a three year period.
In addition, an elective care framework will be published shortly. The purpose of this framework is to set out both the immediate and longer term actions and funding requirements needed to tackle waiting lists.
The Minister said that while one-off emergency COVID funds “cannot provide the long-term fix that our health service requires”, they have proved vital over the past 12 months. He confirmed plans for cancer and mental health funds, as well as a carers fund and an allocation to support staff within Trusts. Further details of these allocations will be provided in the coming days.
“All of these allocations have been made possible as a result of the one-off Covid funds made available to Northern Ireland in 2020/21. I would of course love to be able to allocate further funding, on a recurrent basis, to all these areas. But as ever, available recurrent funding is not keeping up with levels of demand and need,”the Minister added.
Click here to access the NIAS Rebuild Plan April 2021-June 2021.
JOINT STATEMENT BY THE CHIEF EXECUTIVES OF NORTHERN IRELAND'S SIX HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE TRUSTS
Congratulations Margaret Barclay - New Year’s Honours list with the Queen’s Ambulance Medal.
Good Relations week 2020
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service HSC Trust is committed to the promotion of good relations amongst people of different religious belief, race or political opinion.
During Good Relations week 2020, the 6 HSC Trusts engaged online with colleagues from the Community Relations Council, the Equality Commission and service users and carers, HSC staff and Trade Unions, local Council representatives, the Patient and Client Council, the Business Services Organisation, the Public Health Agency and representative organisations to-produce a consistent, clear and unequivocal statement for the HSC Sector to outline our pledge to promote good relations amongst everyone - our patients, service users, carers, visitors and staff.
Consensus was reached on the following statement and this has since been approved by our respective Executive Teams. This will be prominently displayed throughout HSC facilities in Northern Ireland to remind everyone of this important commitment.
We recognise that to give effect to this statement, it is important that it is supported by key meaningful actions to be taken forward collectively at both regional and local levels to ensure consistency of approach.
We look forward to working with you to continue in our work to promote good relations and ensure that everyone is treated fairly with respect and dignity across all of our services and in all of our facilities.