More than 70,000 instances of abuse against healthcare staff in past five years

There have been more than 70,000 instances of abuse against healthcare staff in Northern Ireland in the past five years, figures from the Department of Health show.

Across all trusts there were 59,392 incidents of physical abuse and 13,974 of verbal abuse over the period.

The trust with the highest number of attacks was Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT), with more than 21,000 incidents of physical abuse against staff.

The most occurrences of physical abuse in a single hospital occurred in Craigavon Area Hospital, part of the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, with just over 5,500 cases.

DUP MLA Diane Dodds said the figures “demonstrate the level of abuse health staff face simply doing their job”.

“60,000 physical attacks and over 12,000 incidents of verbal abuse have been recorded over the last five years,” she said.

“I imagine there were thousands of others too which staff didn’t even record.”

She said: “The often-pressurised working environment of health and care staff is difficult enough without the regular threat of violence.

“It is important that those guilty of such attacks are punished appropriately to discourage others and repeated behaviour.

“The minister’s figures only cover health trust staff and will not include many other settings such as health centres, independent providers and private care homes.”

Ms Dodds added: “I am interested in the duration of time missed from work by staff attacked, the loss of capacity in services and the resultant costs.

“Unfortunately, individual staff can sometimes unavoidably end up in difficult and vulnerable situations that those operating in some other sectors would never countenance. They deserve our immense gratitude.”