Attacks on NHS Staff

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 176138 relating to attacks on NHS medical staff.

It is a pleasure to make these introductory remarks under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. The petition highlights the rising problem of attacks on NHS staff, an issue with which I am very familiar from my constituency work. Indeed, local GPs recently raised it with me in my surgery in Radlett. I pay tribute to listeners of London’s LBC radio, who backed this petition as part of the Guard our Emergency Medical Services—GEMS—campaign. Their support for the petition helped to push the number of signatures well over 100,000, which the Petitions Committee usually takes as a benchmark for triggering a debate in this place. I also thank the Royal College of Nursing and the many other representative organisations that have contacted me to highlight the scale of the problem. It is clear that the petition has struck a chord with the public and hon. Members.

The raw facts speak for themselves: there were more than 70,000 recorded assaults on NHS staff in England in 2016—an increase from nearly 68,000 in 2015 and 60,000 in 2004. In the NHS trust serving my constituency, there were more than 1,000 recorded assaults last year. A recent RCN members’ survey found that 56% of nurses had experienced physical or verbal abuse from patients, and a further 63% had experienced abuse from relatives of patients or members of the public.

Those statistics tell only one side of the story. Since I agreed to lead this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, I have been inundated with examples of the scale of the problem. I will cite just a few, which were compiled by 38 Degrees. An NHS staff nurse said that in her

“20 year nursing career I have been spat at, punched, kicked, verbally abused…and even had a cardiac monitor thrown at my head!”

Another said that she works

“in an A&E department as a staff nurse. On a daily basis I see some sort of aggression whether this is physical or verbal towards staff. I can’t recall a day that has gone by where we’ve not had to have security or the Police in the department.”

Perhaps more worrying is evidence given to the Petitions Committee by the Royal College of Nursing, which suggests that some female nurses fear that they are seen as “fair game” for sexual assault. I am sure hon. Members find that appalling.

This problem does not just affect NHS staff working in hospitals and GP surgeries. Concerns have been raised about the safety of lone NHS workers—for example, nurses visiting care homes. Such violence against NHS workers is clearly completely unacceptable, and all Members of the House agree that we must not stand for it. This debate is an opportunity to highlight the problem and send a clear signal from this House that it cannot be tolerated. It is also an opportunity to consider measures to tackle it.

The petition calls for higher legal provision and protection to be extended to NHS staff, making it a specific offence to assault them. As the petition makes clear, that protection is already afforded to police officers under section 89 of the Police Act 1996, and my research indicates that it is also a specific offence to assault prison and immigration officers. It is also an offence to assault doctors, nurses and midwives in Scotland. I raised that point with the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions, and I know from both the response I received subsequently from her and the Government’s response to the petition that they take this problem seriously.

I understand that the current position is that, first, to ensure that prosecutions are brought forward once a charge has been made, the code for Crown prosecutors makes it clear that a prosecution is more likely if the offence has been committed against someone who was serving the public at the time, which includes NHS workers. Secondly, at the sentencing stage, the fact that an offence was committed against a person working in the public sector is an aggravating factor, which means that it is considered as adding to the seriousness of the offence, thereby meriting a longer sentence within the maximum penalty available. In addition, current sentencing practice indicates that custody is used as a starting point for assaults on public servants.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Although what the hon. Gentleman said about aggravating factors, which are set by the Sentencing Council, is important, the argument for having a specific offence rests on the fact that medical staff often deal with people in stressful and sensitive situations, so they deserve a better level of protection equal to that afforded to police officers.

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an apposite point, which I was just about to come on to.

I welcome the progress that has been made as a result of the petition. I understand that the Government have committed to updating the protocol on tackling violence in the health system, which will involve the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on that in his concluding remarks. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I urge the Government to keep an open mind about creating a new specific offence.