NHS staff in England are facing nearly 300,000 violent and sexual assaults over three years, according to a Guardian analysis of data from 212 NHS trusts. The figures, obtained via freedom of information requests, show that incidents of physical violence and aggression rose from 91,175 in 2022-23 to 104,079 in 2024-25, equivalent to about 285 cases per day.
Healthcare unions have described the situation as a national emergency. Prof Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'The scale, frequency and severity of the abuse faced by the NHS workforce make this a national emergency for staff safety.' She added that it should cause 'total outrage' that healthcare professionals, particularly in a female-dominated profession like nursing, face sexual assault, violent assault, or both.
Sexual assaults and harassment have also risen sharply, with nearly 24,000 incidents recorded in the past three years, compared with about 20,000 over the previous five years. Some female staff reported being sexually assaulted while providing treatment, and there were accounts of patients deliberately ejaculating on nurses in A&E.
The British Medical Association attributed the spike to anger over long waiting times, distrust of medicine fuelled by Covid conspiracy theories, and a rise in racism against staff of colour. Emma Runswick, deputy chair of the BMA council, said all NHS staff were 'living in increasing fear of harassment, abuse, violence'.
Frontline staff reported that entire hospital wards are being shut down to contain violent patients, often teenagers with severe mental health needs or autism, due to a lack of appropriate specialist care. One risk manager described a teenager who caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage, requiring a locked ward staffed predominantly by security rather than healthcare workers.
