12 March 2026
A rise in physical violence and discrimination against NHS staff in England is ‘disgraceful, appalling and so much more’ when they are simply trying to do their job and care for patients in their time of need.
That’s the message from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in response to new data showing almost one in seven NHS staff (14.47%) experienced at least one incident of physical violence by a patient or the public last year – the highest in three years.
The data, released today (12 March 2006) by NHS England, is revealed in its latest Staff Survey which contains the experiences of more than 766,000 staff across the healthcare system last year.
It also found nearly one in ten staff (9.26%) said they were subjected to discrimination from patients and the public – the highest on record.
Out of those who work in an Acute, and Acute and Community Trust (524,528) services:
- 61.54% said they would be happy with the standard of care provided by their organisation if a friend or relative needed treatment – the lowest since 2021.
- 25.03% stated they have personally experienced at least one incident of harassment, bullying or abuse in the last 12 months from patients, their relatives or other members of the public
- 32.35% stated they ‘often’ or ‘always’ feel burnt out because of their work – an increase since 2023 (31.51%)
- Just over half (51.66%) said they ‘often’ or ‘always’ look forward to going to work
- 53.23% said their organisation takes positive action on health and wellbeing – a four-year low
- 42.46% stated they have felt unwell as a result of work related stress in the last 12 months
- 43.76% said they ‘often’ or ‘always’ feel worn out at the end of their working day/shift – ever so slightly up from last year (43%) but down from 47.98% in 2021.
Responding, Dr Ian Higginson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “It’s deeply saddening that our staff across the NHS – who come to work to every day to help people in need – are experiencing violence and discrimination from patients and the public.
“It’s disgraceful, appalling and so much more. It’s totally and completely unacceptable and has no place in our health service.
“All staff should all feel safe going to work to carry out the role they trained to do – not fear they will be attacked, discriminated against, subjected to racism or have verbal abuse hurled towards them.
“It cannot be tolerated and needs to be called out, reported and escalated to the appropriate authorities.
“Patients who abuse staff should be held responsible for their actions, and we need to be careful that the current tendency towards increasing division in society doesn’t encourage or normalise attitudes and behaviours that are completely unacceptable.
“It’s clear from the survey’s findings that all of us – government, politicians, healthcare leaders, colleagues and patients – have more to do to ensure our workforce is looked after and supported.”