New laws to protect NHS workers
Updated on 31 August 2007
GPs and other NHS staff are to be given the same legal protection as emergency workers following the stabbing of a doctor in her surgery, the Executive said.
Dr Helen Jackson, 56, is being treated in hospital after she was attacked at her practice in the West End of Glasgow on Thursday.
Public health minister Shona Robison said she had spoken to justice secretary Kenny MacAskill about speeding up plans to include all medical staff in legislation which protects frontline public workers.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, she said: "Primary care staff in particular, I've always argued, were the key to the fact that they should always have been included in that legislation because they are working out in the community, often in relative isolation with not many people round about them and they were always more vulnerable.
"And I think it is unfortunate that those calls weren't headed when the legislation was going through but we intend to make that right now, as soon as we can."
The Emergency Workers Act, which came into force in May 2005, gives courts the power to hand out tougher sentences for assaults on police, ambulance and emergency medical staff.
While nurses, doctors and midwives working in hospitals are covered, it does not apply to those working in the community in a non-emergency situation.
However, Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of the BMA's Scottish GP committee, claimed even more support is needed.
Speaking on the same Good Morning Scotland programme, he said: "Other primary healthcare staff are probably at more risk than those who work in hospitals and it is just incredible that they were specifically excluded from this legislation."
Dr Jackson is receiving treatment at Glasgow's Western Infirmary, where her condition is described as stable. A 62-year-old man has been arrested.
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