Domestic Abuse

(asked on 23rd April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of NHS trusts in England that provided mandatory domestic abuse training for midwives in each of the last five years.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 1st May 2019

The number of National Health Service trusts in England that provide mandatory domestic abuse training for staff is not held centrally.

NHS staff must complete a statutory and mandatory training programme which is provided by e-Learning for Health. The programme includes modules on safeguarding adults and children. The requirement to complete this training is part of the employment contract for each employee and it is the responsibility of individual health and social care employer organisations to ensure that their workforce complete it.

In addition, the Department has also put £2 million over 2018/19 and 2019/20 behind expanding a pathfinder programme, which will create a model health response for survivors of domestic violence and abuse in general practice, mental health services and hospitals. This expands the number of clinical commissioning groups which are pathfinder sites from three to eight providing health services to approximately 18,000 survivors.

In March 2017 the Department published an online Domestic Violence and Abuse resource for health professionals to improve awareness of domestic violence and abuse. It advises health staff on how they can support adults and young people over 16 who are experiencing domestic abuse, and dependent children in their households, by showing how they can respond effectively to disclosures of abuse.

The Department has also funded the successful Identification and Referral to Improve Safety (IRIS) project. This provides staff training and a support programme to bridge the gap between the voluntary sector and primary care, to harness the strengths of each, and to provide an improved domestic violence service. IRIS has been adopted in over 800 general practices across 33 areas of the United Kingdom so far.

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