Almost 1 in 7 NHS staff (14.47%) were physically attacked by a patient or member of the public last year — the highest rate in three years, according to the latest NHS Staff Survey.
The survey also found a record share of staff reporting unwanted sexual behaviour by patients or the public, rising steeply to almost 1 in 3 ambulance staff (31%). More than 766,000 NHS workers in England responded to the survey, one of the world’s largest workforce surveys, established in 2003.
Nearly 1 in 10 staff (9.26%) said they experienced discrimination from patients or the public — the highest on record. At the same time, 87.78% of respondents felt their job made a difference to patients. The proportion who would recommend their workplace fell slightly to 58.05%, down from 60.79% in 2024.
Danny Mortimer, Director General (People) for NHS England, said: “These figures paint a deeply worrying picture of the abuse our hardworking NHS staff face. Staff safety and wellbeing is paramount, and we want everyone experiencing any kind of unwanted incident to feel confident enough to report it. But while that behaviour is completely unacceptable, we must look at what more we can do to support the people who keep our services running. We know about the everyday pressures staff face — such as not being able to get decent food on a night shift — and we haven’t moved fast enough to fix them. Staff have worked so hard to improve NHS performance and deliver care over winter as shown in the latest performance figures. These survey results show it is now for the NHS to deliver improvements for staff because there is so much more to do to make the NHS a better place to work.”
The staff survey is available at: https://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/ (Working together to improve NHS staff experiences).