Reflections on recent events and our absolute commitment to protecting staff and patients through our zero tolerance approach to abuse | News Centre

  1. Text Size:
  2. Contrast:

NHS logo

Girl Touching Pregnant Mums Stomach

News and media releases from across East Surrey and the Surrey Heartlands area

If you have some news to share, would like to see us feature a patient story or simply have a question, then feel free to get in touch with us.

Get in touch

Reflections on recent events and our absolute commitment to protecting staff and patients through our zero tolerance approach to abuse

Surrey Heartlands tree logo navy

Following on from the tragic events in Southport last week and the escalating violence and protests that have followed across the country over the weekend, as a system our first priority will always be supporting and protecting our staff and our patients.

To that end, our absolute commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion remains and we stand by our firm zero tolerance approach to abuse, racism or discrimination of any kind against our staff, our wider NHS community, our partners and our patients and residents.

We are incredibly proud of the multi-cultural nature of our workforce and our population and the richness this brings to our health and care system and to Surrey Heartlands.

If anyone witnesses any form of threatening, violent or aggressive behaviour, we urge staff and patients to report it immediately through the appropriate channels, involving police colleagues, where necessary, to ensure these behaviours are called out and acted on.

We recognise that members of our workforce, particularly those on the frontline, and members of our communities, may feel worried or anxious about the nature of the events we have been witnessing, and some may have been affected personally, where people may have friends and relatives in the towns and cities affected. 

We know our partner organisations will already be supporting staff locally and, as a health and care system, we would encourage anyone who has been affected by recent events to come forward and seek support – and for us all to continue to support each other and stand strong together.

This website makes use of Essential Cookies, as defined in the UK GDPR, in order to function and to improve your security, e.g. when submitting forms. These Essential Cookies are only for security and site function, and do not track individual in any way.

In order to better understand your needs and so improve our services to you, this website may also make use of some cookies that are used for traffic analytics or other behavioural statistics ("Analytics Cookies"): more details can be found on our website privacy and cookie policy. If you are happy to accept these Analytics Cookies, please press the Accept button; if you are not happy to accept these Analytics Cookies, this site will still work correctly but some third party services (such as some videos or social media feeds) may not display.

Please choose a setting: