£150,000 fine for Care Home Wheelchair Restraint Strap Death

A private healthcare company was fined £150,000 in January 2012 after admitting its part in the death of an elderly nursing home resident who was strangled by a wheelchair lap belt. Brigid O’Callaghan, known as Vera, was found dead on the morning of October 28, 2005 at Amberley Court Nursing Home in Edgbaston, Birmingham. […]
Punch Drunk Restraint Training Design

What Stimulus Are You Preparing Your Staff to Respond To? One of the key questions we ask our colleagues in the field of training, as we visit with them to share our approach, is: “What stimulus are you preparing your staff to respond to?” The question is somewhat oblique, but it focuses on the heart […]
Risks of Lone Working
The Reality of Lone Working A Royal College of Nursing study dealing with the issues of lone working and personal safety surveyed about 1,500 nurses who work in the community. The findings reveal serious gaps in how organisations protect their lone workers. 📊 RCN Survey findings: Almost two-thirds of community staff said their employers did […]
Care Home Safe Holding: Alzheimer’s man (90) punched to death by fellow resident

Dennis Bryant died in November 2013 at the age of 90 after fellow Alzheimer’s patient, Michael Hall, went into his room in Westcott House Nursing Home in Dorking and punched him several times in his bed. The attacker, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in June 2013, was admitted to East Surrey Hospital with a police escort that […]
Retail Security Risks and Training in Personal Safety

I read with interest this appalling — but familiar — story about a female security guard being stabbed with a syringe in a Sainsbury’s in Kent. The security guard confronted a drug-taking subject as he attempted to steal a bottle of whiskey from the supermarket shelves and make off with it outside the store. The […]
Restraint Training Continuous Improvement: Dynamis quality scores from 2015
Since January 2015 we have been collecting our feedback data through electronic surveys with all the attendees on our courses. Rather than hand out the proverbial “happy sheet” at the end of a long training day, our training team send learners a survey to complete perhaps a day or a week after their course has […]
Community Safety and the Threat of Knife Crime: Part 1

We were recently commissioned to provide our advanced Edged Weapon Protection training course to a team of Community Safety officers at a local authority. This team works in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and primarily serve as street-based contact professionals who are the eyes and ears of the community in terms of anti-social behaviour and youth crime. Their job […]
How to keep staff safe in learning disability services: a story

The following is an actual story and scenario which was reported to our training team in the sessions that we deliver for staff who look after vulnerable people in care. I believe that stories like this are generally representative of the kinds of conflict and violent incidents which occur with largely un-recognised frequency in learning […]
Children’s Care Home Physical Interventions: Course Feedback

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