NEW figures reveal that more than 300 NHS staff members working in Somerset were assaulted last year.

From April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016, 373 staff members from the Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust were assaulted, according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), with attacks on NHS staff in England rising sharply, with more than 70,000 reported.

At Musgrove Park Hospital, an additional 126 staff were physically assaulted, 88 suffered verbal abuse, 30 suffered a threat of abuse wile 15 other suffered another form of abuse, including racist incidents.

Jeannett Martin, regional director for RCN South West, said: “One assault is one too many. NHS staff do not go to work expecting to be assaulted and should not accept the risk of violence as ‘part of the job’.

“Every incident should be reported and taken seriously by employers so that, where appropriate, charges are brought and, in every case, lessons learned to reduce the risk of re-occurrence.”

In Somerset, 258 of the assaults involved a medical factor, meaning the assaulter did not know what they were doing, or what they were doing was wrong, due to factors such as mental illness or severe learning disabilities. However, 115 of the assaults did not involve a medical factor.

Nine of the assaults resulted in reported criminal sanctions, including imprisonment or a fine, and nine resulted in reported civil and administrative sanctions, such as a banning from premises or a warning letter.

Chris Cox, director of Membership Relations for the RCN said: “Nursing staff are working in difficult enough conditions as it is this Christmas. It is unacceptable that going to work brings the threat of violence and danger, but this recorded increase may be a symptom of worrying levels of patient and family frustration and aggression, as care is delayed and staff try to cope under difficult circumstances.

“With longer waits and the pressures of understaffed units, the atmosphere can become a tinderbox. Violence often has a lasting impact with threats and assaults leading to traumatised staff who need time off, or leave the profession – wards become more short-staffed and patient care suffers. Assaults against staff cost the NHS more than £60 million per year.

“It is likely that the reported assaults are just scratching the surface of the problem, with many not being reported because staff don’t believe that action will be taken. For this reason sanctions should always be imposed on those who wilfully hurt staff.

“The government needs to take action now.”

Peter Lewis, deputy chief executive at Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We take the safety of our workforce and patients very seriously and the figures published by NHS Protect show that we have a very strong culture of reporting incidents at the hospital.

“In 2015/16 we gave almost 700,000 episodes of patient care and the majority of the incidents reported are on medical and surgical wards, usually with the increasing number of elderly and confused patients we are caring for or those still recovering from anaesthetic or sedation.

"Over nine in ten incidents reported involved no physical harm – we include verbal assaults as part of our figures.”