Under the Health and Safety at Work act, we have a duty of care to provide a safe and secure environment for anyone employed to carry out work on our behalf, or people who attend our events. This includes:
- Staff
- Volunteers
- Facilitators
The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) defines work-related violence as:
“Any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work.”
We treat all our contacts, service users, event attendees and callers with respect and dignity. In return, we expect to be treated in the same way, and won’t tolerate any incident where an employee is abused or threatened.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- Verbal abuse, including shouting
- Bad language, swearing or offensive remarks
- Racist, sexist, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic or other discriminatory language
- Physical threats or violence towards any employee or other service users
- Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to employees – we’ll meet reasonable demands whenever possible, and explain when we can’t
We understand that in some cases, a person’s individual circumstances may make it more challenging to communicate. Where there’s a concern about inappropriate behaviour, we'll always consider a person’s needs and situation before deciding on what to do next.
If a person we are in contact with behaves in an abusive or threatening way, we have the right to:
- End a service
- End a call
- Ban the person from attending a future event or service
- Ban the person from fundraising for us
- Decide on any further action that we think is necessary to protect our staff, volunteers and facilitators
If you have any questions about this, please call our supporter care team on 0333 20 70 300 or email hello@breastcancernow.org.