Hospitals need more security guards and CCTV in emergency departments to protect the state’s emergency workers, a NSW parliamentary inquiry has found. The inquiry’s report, released on Wednesday, includes 47 recommendations to improve the safety of emergency workers with police and ambulance officers at greatest risk of harm. The report suggests increasing frontline ambulance resources to ensure paramedics never work alone and, in hospitals, employing extra security guards and installing CCTV in emergency departments. In its report, the inquiry calls on the government to increase its resourcing of paramedic staff as “jobs can be unpredictable and it is not safe for paramedics to be attending alone”. It recommended NSW Health install more CCTV cameras in emergency departments, particularly in regional parts of the state, because of its usefulness as a violence prevention measure.
