Health Secretary Matt Hancock has promised new measures to tackle assaults on NHS staff – which have reached a five year high. The latest figures show that 15 per cent of NHS staff reported physical and verbal abuse in the course of their duties – but many more are facing abuse and threats via their work computers from cyber criminals.
Digital world brings new staff risks
The NHS has become a prime target for cyber criminals looking to access sensitive data to manipulate the NHS or to inflict operationally crippling viruses.
If an employee inadvertently opens the door to cyber-attackers, the results can be significant, and the employee can be psychologically harmed.
With the NHS trying to attract and retain staff, one of its biggest challenges is building a safe working environment.
Keep the door shut to cyber-attacks
Staff are an organisation’s biggest asset – as well as an organisation’s biggest responsibility. As with verbal abuse, the repercussions of an online or cyber-attack can be well hidden and long-lasting.
If a member of staff believes they may have caused a cyber-attack, the psychological effects may be detrimental to their mental health.
New measures to tackle employee abuse, must also contain strategies to reduce online risks, such as:
- Ensuring your identity and access management systems contain accurate data. By introducing automated synchronisation of data, NHS Trusts can be confident that the right people have access to the right systems.
- Installing BDS Solutions’ Directory Manager which coordinates data automatically between ESR, Active Directory and NHSmail, so staff records are effectively managed to ensure the primary ‘source of truth’ is preserved.
- Developing a culture of responsibility for work accounts. Employees should have individual access details and should not be sharing.
- Introducing a no-blame ethos that encourages communication. Reporting an attack quickly can save valuable time and limit the impact. Training staff to not be scared to report incidents and reassuring them that there are no repercussions is vital.
- Training staff to spot suspicious activity. NHS employees are busy but training them to question unusual behaviour or requests will help to protect NHS systems.
A zero tolerance approach to attacks on staff shouldn’t just focus on physical and verbal abuse, but also identify risks online.