Any example of violence towards nurses and other health staff is unacceptable

Alison Whyte, Nursing Times

Nurses described being kicked, punched, slapped, bitten, stabbed, head-butted and sworn at.

Most of the 1,500 nurses who responded to the survey blamed the rise in violence on a corresponding increase in alcohol consumption, particularly in young people.

Angry

Many said they felt angry and left down by the NHS.

One trust surveyed by the magazine could not cite a single case in which action had been taken against an attacker, even though it had recorded more than 400 violent incidents against staff over the past year.

Ministers have urged NHS trusts to get tough on violent patients.

Department of Health figures suggest there are 65,000 violent incidents against hospital staff each year - two out of three of these involve nursing staff.

Under guidelines introduced last year, trust managers have the right to withhold treatment "as a last resort" if staff are threatened, unless the condition is life threatening.

Action demanded

Nursing Times deputy editor Alison Whyte called on the NHS to get tough with offenders.

"We are not saying that the majority of the general public are violent towards nurses at all, but a significant minority are," she said.

"But any example of violence towards nurses and other health staff is unacceptable.

"Nursing Times is calling on employers to call the police after a nurse is assaulted to make an official record of the offence and the trusts to prosecute the offenders.

"The violence has got to stop."

The magazine called on trusts to either press charges against those who attack nurses or support nurses who wish to press charges themselves.

It also called for effective training for staff in managing and de-escalating violence in order to reduce the number of violent incidents.