Arrives with general security or front-of-house experience, into an environment where the rules are entirely different.
Our own project · Meridian Hospital Group is a constructed operator; the instrument and its figures are real
Meridian Hospital Group · Department and ward
Security and reception
Meets people at the worst moment of their lives, and absorbs the aggression that drives attrition recorded in somebody else's report.
Chapter 1 · Department and ward
What they actually do
Access control, de-escalation, protection of patients and staff, and the first thing anybody sees on arriving.
Reception in particular is a clinical triage function in disguise: the person at the desk is often the first to realise somebody is seriously unwell, or is about to become violent.
- Answers for
- Safety of patients and staff, and the first impression of the hospital.
- Can actually move
- Access, de-escalation, and how a frightened person is met at the door.
- Sees the cost of
- Violence and aggression toward staff, which is a major driver of the attrition that appears in somebody else’s report.
Chapter 2 · From arriving to moving on
Growth in the role
Entered without formal healthcare qualification, and the healthcare-specific skill is that the aggression is usually fear or illness rather than criminality.
Learning that the aggressive person may be hypoglycaemic, hypoxic, delirious or terrified, and that restraint is nearly always the wrong first move.
The best rarely have incidents, because they read the waiting room and intervene early, which means their value is measured by things that did not happen.
Supervision, or into healthcare assistant and mental health support roles, where the de-escalation skill is directly transferable and highly valued.
Chapter 3 · And how it is usually settled
Where this role is in conflict
-
With The patient
Over Access and restriction- Why it is structural
- Visiting rules, department access and occasionally restraint are experienced by the patient as the institution against them.
- How it is settled today
- By policy, and the quality of the outcome depends almost entirely on how it is explained.
-
With Clinical staff
Over When to intervene- Why it is structural
- Clinicians see a patient who is unwell; security sees a risk to everybody in the room. Both readings are usually correct.
- How it is settled today
- By joint judgement where the relationship is good, and badly where it is not.
-
With Finance
Over Establishment- Why it is structural
- Security is a pure cost line whose benefit is entirely in incidents that did not occur.
- How it is settled today
- By cutting, until something happens, which is the standard sequence for every preventive function in this list.
Chapter 4 · Actor one
How this reaches the patient
First and last impression, and item eight begins here. Whether a frightened person is met with suspicion or with help sets the tone for everything that follows.
Also holds part of item five for other patients, since a safe department is a precondition for everything else in it.
Chapter 5 · Actor two
How this reaches the rest of the provider
Violence and aggression toward staff is a major driver of the turnover that appears in the workforce report, and the people who absorb most of it are these.
A good security and reception function measurably reduces attrition elsewhere in the building, and nothing in the accounting structure would ever show that.
Every role, side by side
The full hierarchy, and where accountability and control come apart.
Back to people and hierarchy