NHS staff face ‘national emergency’ as patient violence hits 285 incidents a day | NHS
Nurses, doctors and paramedics are reporting tens of thousands of cases of violence and sexual assault experienced by patients each year, amid warnings that abuse of NHS staff has become a national crisis.
Freedom of information requests from the Guardian revealed more than 295,000 incidents of physical violence and aggression by patients against staff were recorded by 212 NHS trusts in England between 2022 and 2025.
Healthcare unions have warned of a spike in attacks on staff over Christmas and New Year. Last week, a man attacked and injured six staff and patients with a crowbar at Newton public hospital on Merseyside. He was arrested and Detained under the Mental Health ActAccording to Merseyside police.
Hospital records show the number of violent incidents, ranging from violent threats to actual attempted attacks, rose from 91,175 in 2022-23 to 104,079 in 2024-25. This is equivalent to approximately 285 cases being reported every day over the last year.
Prof Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: “The scale, frequency and severity of abuse faced by the NHS workforce makes this a national emergency for staff safety.”
Trusts have also recorded a huge increase in cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment, ranging from abusive language towards staff to rape. About 24,000 alleged such incidents were recorded in the last three years, compared to about 20,000 in the previous five years.
While some female staff members said they were sexually assaulted during treatment, others said they witnessed patients deliberately ejaculating on nurses in the emergency room.
“Working in the NHS is becoming increasingly dangerous,” Ranger said. “There should be utter outrage when healthcare workers, especially in a female-dominated profession like nursing, face the possibility of being sexually assaulted, violently assaulted, or sometimes both.”
Doctors and nurses said they faced numerous attacks, including attacks with knives and other weapons, destroying rooms and equipment and causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage. But they added that perpetrators rarely face treatment or a ban on prosecution.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said the spike in violence and aggression from patients was due to a combination of anger at long waits for treatment, growing distrust of medicine fueled by conspiracy theories about Covid and a sharp rise in racism towards black staff.
BMA council deputy leader Emma Runswick said all NHS staff were “living in fear of increasing harassment, abuse and violence”.
Front-line staff and administrators said it was increasingly common to close entire hospital wards to keep violent, mentally ill or emotionally dysregulated youth in isolation for weeks or months. Officials added that this now happens routinely because young people with serious mental health needs or autism are not being provided with appropriate specialist care.
A risk manager at a large NHS hospital trust in the north of England said: “We probably have six or seven months a year where at least one of our wards is completely locked down, for a patient who is so violent they can’t have other patients on the ward with them. “These are locked wards, staffed mainly by security staff, not medical staff.
“Last year, we had a young man who caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage in a ward, removing hardware from walls, breaking windows, removing door hinges. These patients need two, three, four assistance 24/7. [staff] It is necessary to care about their safety as they may harm themselves or attack family members or staff. “The problem right now is that there are no bed spaces in secure mental health units, so they are with us until they become available.”
Junior doctor Runswick, who works in the community mental health team, said he was aware of similar incidents at other trusts. In one example, a young patient needed “six members.” [of staff] “We are within touching distance of this person at any time and the entire ward is sealed off to prevent them from attacking others or even harming themselves.”
But while patients with serious mental health problems, dementia and delirium are responsible for many attacks on staff, intentional aggression is also increasing in other patients due to long waits for care, he said.
“The reason for the violence is the poor service we gave them and all their family members,” Runswick said. “This can only be prevented if the service is improved.”
The doctor said rising levels of abuse were linked to the wider staffing and funding crisis in the NHS. He added that some of the highest levels of abuse were seen in trusts that relied on large numbers of overseas staff, where racism was often a key factor in attacks by patients and relatives.
“Race-based harassment is greatly increasing,” Runswick said. “The racist abuse in Greater Manchester, where I worked, was truly appalling and violent.”
He also added that the number of hostile patients who do not trust medical staff or the NHS is increasing due to conspiracy theories about Covid and vaccines. “Now when I go to A&E to assess people, you hear people in the waiting room shouting: ‘You just want us to die.’ No one would say that.”
Healthcare unions have also raised concerns about how accurate official records of abuse are, with some NHS trusts’ figures appearing incredibly low.
40 of 212 NHS trusts surveyed by the Guardian recorded more than 2,000 allegations of violence each between 2022 and 2025; seven of them had more than 5,000 cases. And 26 NHS trusts each recorded more than 500 cases of alleged sexual harm between 2022 and 2025; six of these had more than 1,000 cases.
However, according to the released data, eight foundations reported fewer than 10 cases of violence in three years, while 45 foundations reported 20 or fewer cases of sexual harm; of these, 19 reported less than 10. Experts said such low numbers seemed extremely unlikely, given the large number of patients treated and staff employed.
NHS trust managers and healthcare unions said the figures recorded represented a tiny fraction of the true extent of physical and sexual abuse because incidents happened so frequently that staff did not have time to formally report them all.
“These figures show that some trusts are dealing with explosions in incidents, while others refuse to share data or claim they have hardly seen a single case,” the RCN general secretary added. “You can’t keep your employees safe if you ignore what’s happening or don’t know where the danger is.”
Survey of 20,000 nurses Published by RCN last month It was found that more than 27 percent said they had been physically attacked by patients, their relatives or other members of the public in the last 12 months. More than 10 percent reported being sexually harassed.
Ranger called on health secretary Wes Streeting and NHS England to deal urgently with the crisis, adding that there was little doubt that some NHS trusts were breaching their legal duties under the Health and Safety Act and worker protection legislation, which require employers to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.
Runswick agreed, adding: “The evidence we’ve seen certainly points to that. If the Health and Safety Executive comes along.” [to inspect them]There will be many places where it will fail on these grounds.”
Runswick added that NHS trusts that strongly addressed attacks on staff were the exception rather than the rule. “Most trusts say they have zero tolerance and do nothing about it.”
The Health and Safety Executive said 60% of the 60 NHS trusts it examined between 2018 and 2022 to assess their compliance with legislation aimed at preventing and reducing workplace violence. by violating the law.
Responding to the findings, Health and Social Services Secretary Wes Streeting said: “Violence, aggression, racism and sexual harassment towards NHS staff is completely unacceptable. Our doctors, nurses and healthcare workers deserve to feel safe at work without fear of abuse, assault or harassment.”
“The NHS has zero tolerance for this behaviour. Last year we announced an urgent review into measures to tackle discrimination in the NHS and threats and violence against staff. Trusts are now go further Identifying and taking swift action against perpetrators of sexual harassment, while strengthening the training of staff to detect incidents.
“Any incidents must be reported to the police. We are targeting the worst offenders with new guidelines to ensure the most serious assaults face the toughest penalties, including life imprisonment.”
An NHS England spokesman said physical violence against staff was “completely unacceptable” and urged those affected to report incidents to their employer or the police.
A spokesman for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “The force stands firmly behind a zero-tolerance approach to any form of violence, aggression or attack against frontline and NHS staff carrying out their vital duties.”
