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Abstract
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In the context of covid-19, persistent abuse of NHS doctors compounds the emotional toll on staff, damages morale, and threatens patient safety. Plans to stem the tide may be insufficient, as Kathy Oxtoby reports
"In just a few weeks patients physically assaulted three of my colleagues in the emergency department," Susan Robinson, a consultant in emergency medicine based in Cambridge, tells The BMJ. "I've experienced and noticed more verbal abuse, often from relatives who are distressed because they are not allowed to stay with patients, or from patients frustrated by long waits."
Nearly 15% of respondents to the latest NHS Staff Survey, covering 2020, reported experiencing at least one episode of violence from patients, their relatives, or other members of the public, similar to 2019.1 And over a third of staff who had frequent face-to-face contact with service users reported experiencing at least one incident of bullying, harassment, or abuse from patients, relatives, or the public in the past year.
As the covid-19 pandemic places unprecedented pressures on healthcare services and staff, anecdotes have brought the problem of abuse to the fore. "One doctor told us they had experienced more unpleasantness in six months than in all their previous 50 years working in healthcare," says Pallavi Bradshaw, medicolegal lead for risk prevention at the Medical Protection Society (MPS), which protects and supports the professional interests of healthcare staff.
Of 1251 doctors who responded to an MPS survey last September and October, 375 (30%) had been verbally abused by patients or relatives while at work during the pandemic. Another 63 (5%) had experienced physical abuse.2 And 88 (7%) had experienced abuse outside the workplace, such as when using an NHS queue at a supermarket...
Language: en |