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A<\/span> Guardian call-out to NHS staff in England to share their experiences of violence in hospitals has revealed that doctors, nurses, paramedics and managers are being overwhelmed by a torrent of physical assaults and sexual abuse by patients.<\/p>\n Most respondents said they had little faith in the NHS to tackle the scale and severity of this abuse, which included being attacked with weapons, including knives and chairs. Many staff felt there was no point in reporting physical or sexual harm because perpetrators faced no real comeback from the NHS or the police.<\/p>\n Chloe<\/strong>, 29, a resident doctor in an acute medical unit at a London hospital, said she had frequently dealt with abuse and threats since completing her training just over a year ago. \u201cPatients have told me to fuck off, and that they\u2019ll \u2018sue the shit out of me\u2019,\u201d she said. Male patients have also sexually harassed her during intimate treatments, she added. \u201cI\u2019ve had lots of men implying that I enjoy it or that I want to have a look [at their genitals]. One guy who grabbed my arm as I was putting the catheter in kept telling me \u2018Oh, you\u2019re so beautiful\u2019. It was very uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Chloe said she often felt unable to remove herself from hostile situations because of staff shortages and concerns about leaving other patients at risk of harm. On one night shift, when she was the only doctor for 40-50 patients, she said a female patient stormed into a staff room and threatened her. \u201cShe was screaming \u2018why haven\u2019t you fucking come to see me? You should kill yourself\u2019 I had to move a chair between us. Luckily, a nurse came and distracted her and she stormed back to her room. I\u2019ve been lucky not to be physically assaulted but it\u2019s so common. Two colleagues were severely assaulted by patients just outside the emergency department the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily<\/strong>, a charge nurse from England, said A&E staff faced daily violence and sexual harm from patients and their relatives. \u201cNurses have been spat at, pushed, and punched,\u201d she added, saying colleagues had left the NHS or gone on prolonged sick leave after suffering injuries and trauma. She said a particularly worrying development since the pandemic was the increasing number of younger patients, aged 14 to 25, bringing knives and other weapons into her hospital: \u201cThis happens once a month. That is utterly terrifying when you\u2019ve got a very overcrowded A&E department. Someone could do catastrophic harm in a matter of minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Chloe, Emily said sexual harassment by patients was common. She recounted two separate incidents in her emergency department where men, seemingly waiting for treatment, deliberately ejaculated on nurses. Neither man had mental health or medical issues that might mitigate their behaviour, she added.<\/p>\n Although the two men were prosecuted, Emily said there were usually no consequences for abusive patients. Her trust issues warnings and treatment bans but, in practice, there is \u201cnothing to stop them coming back a few hours later or booking into A&E under an alias\u201d. Together with the sheer volume of abuse and rising demand for treatment, this means staff report only a small minority of abusive incidents. \u201cWhen you\u2019re managing too many patients, you are only going to report the tip of the iceberg,\u201d added Emily.<\/p>\n John<\/strong>, a risk manager in a large northern teaching hospital, said dealing with the rise in patient hostility was hampered by staff shortages, budget cuts and police inaction. \u201cPeople have found that you can act in a threatening way to get what you want and there won\u2019t be any comeback,\u201d he said, adding that at least two staff a week were treated in A&E after attacks by patients.<\/p>\n \u201cFifteen years ago, it wouldn\u2019t have been appropriate to stand in A&E swearing and hitting people,\u201d he said, noting that many perpetrators were mentally well patients aggressively demanding treatment. \u201cIf you did, you\u2019d be arrested and you wouldn\u2019t get care. Whereas now the police aren\u2019t coming, you\u2019re not going to be arrested, and you actually get care faster, so staff can get you out of the department. We took down the poster saying there was zero tolerance to violence and aggression. The argument was that we can\u2019t say that because there isn\u2019t. No one\u2019s getting prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n He and several other staff highlighted the challenges caused by admitting mentally unwell teenagers who were waiting for specialist psychiatric treatment. \u201cWe have a child patient and they are assaulting every staff member that comes near them,\u201d said John. \u201cLast week, three of our nurses were in A&E. One had been strangled, one had been hit in the face with a table. The other one had been punched and had their eyes gouged. It\u2019s horrific, the level of violence. But the police won\u2019t touch it because patients are medically unwell, so they won\u2019t have them in the cells. They\u2019ll just bring them back to A&E.\u201d<\/p>\n Other staff said a lack of beds for mentally ill adults and people with dementia contributed to the increase in violent incidents. George<\/strong>, 59, a former consultant at a teaching hospital in northern England, said he experienced two potentially life altering assaults in the months before he retired two years ago. Both incidents involved mentally ill adults who were being treated on medical wards because no specialist care beds were free. \u201cThe first was a patient who managed to obtain a knife from the staff kitchen,\u201d he said. \u201cHe told a male nurse that he was going to kill me, and attempted to attack me but the nurse disarmed him.\u201d<\/p>\n Weeks later, another patient, who was on a medical ward despite being known to be psychotic, attacked him from behind and punched him in the head. \u201cHe wrestled me to the floor and kicked me,\u201d said the former doctor. \u201cHe had already assaulted three or four nurses before that happened. He was a danger to everybody, including the other patients. It was only after this incident that he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam<\/strong>, a paramedic from the south-west of England, agreed that the difficulty of accessing mental health services was a major factor behind a huge increase in violence and aggression toward ambulance crews since the pandemic. Although he and his colleagues were now equipped with bodyworn cameras, this did not deter attacks, he added. \u201cI\u2019ve been grabbed, I\u2019ve been strangled,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve had knives pulled on me in the back of ambulances.\u201d<\/p>\n His ambulance service regularly has to deal with aggressive patients who ring 999 whenever they are in crisis. \u201cSome of these people are phoning 100-200 times within a six-month period,\u201d he said, adding that these patients had warning markers in their medical records but police often refused to deal with them because their mental health problems were deemed to be an ambulance matter. \u201cThat\u2019s exposing staff to an increased level of violence and aggression, as having the police there is generally a deterrent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Adam said that even when the police did respond to reports of assault, they often did not take action because it was not in the public interest to prosecute vulnerable patients. \u201cThey\u2019ve basically been let off,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though they\u2019ve assaulted us and damaged equipment on the ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n Share your experience<\/p>\n If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and would like to share your experience, please do so in the form below. One of our journalists will be in touch, before we publish any responses.\u00a0<\/p>\n Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For alternative ways to get in touch securely please see our tips guide.<\/p>\n Share your experiences here <\/p>\n Please include as much detail as possible. <\/p>\n If you are happy to, please upload a photo of yourself here Optional<\/span><\/p>\n Please note, the maximum file size is 5.7 MB.<\/p>\n Choose file<\/p>\n Can we publish your response? <\/p>\n You can add more information here Optional<\/span><\/p>\n If you include other people’s names please ask them first.<\/p>\n Would you be interested in speaking to our audio and\/or video teams? <\/p>\n By submitting your response, you are agreeing to share your details with us for this feature.<\/p>\n Submit<\/p>\n <\/span>Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Guardian call-out to NHS staff in England to share their experiences of violence in hospitals has revealed that doctors, nurses, paramedics and managers are being overwhelmed by a torrent of physical assaults and sexual abuse by patients. Most respondents said they had little faith in the NHS to tackle the scale and severity of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[178,5583,9335,1229,21998,3058,6794,13507,1388],"class_list":{"0":"post-41163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-hospitals","9":"tag-levels","10":"tag-medics","11":"tag-nhs","12":"tag-punched","13":"tag-pushed","14":"tag-soaring","15":"tag-spat","16":"tag-violence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}