As we approach mental health awareness week taking place this month from 9–15 May, it is difficult not to be acutely aware of the disturbing statistics recently released by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) (2022).
Every single day during 2021, 32 ambulance staff based in the UK were abused or attacked—that is a total of 11 749 staff, or more than one during every hour of every day throughout the entire year. The initial period following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the most stark rise of 23% compared with the previous year and, over the last 5 years, there has been an increase of 4060 incidents. These ranged from verbal abuse, slapping, head-butting, kicking and punching assaults to serious attacks involving knives and other weapons. Assaults against female ambulance staff have risen by close to 50%, while younger members of staff aged 21–34 years have seen the greatest increase in abuse and violence in the past 5 years.
It is unimaginable and very difficult to understand how all of this abuse can be aimed at the very people who are showing up to work every day to keep the rest of us safe and alive—yet, for many within the profession, it is still seen as ‘part and parcel’ of the job.
However, this type of violence should never be accepted as part of any job. A big part of working towards a change is not only a completely zero-tolerance approach to violence from all ambulance staff and leaders, as well as in the eyes of the law, but also a culture in which staff are actively encouraged to speak out about their experiences when such incidents do take place, and take the time and resources needed to recover. All staff at all levels should be educated that they should never need to simply ‘get on with it’ if they are faced with abuse at work and should never expect this of a colleague. Adequate resources must be allocated to preventing violence towards staff and actively supporting them should incidents occur, without any fear of stigma towards having been affected not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and perhaps spiritually as well.
Towards the end of last year, I received an email from one of our highly valued newly qualified paramedic columnists that he and his crewmate had been brutally attacked. Having gotten to know what a passionate paramedic and warm person he is, it was frankly heartbreaking to even think of him being on the receiving end of such violent aggression—and so early on his career. He described it as one of the worst experiences of his life and over the last few months since then, he has been taking the time to recover from the incident, process what happened and work out how to move forward in this career. In a brave example of a new more open ambulance culture, on p 213 of this issue, Barry Costello sheds some light into his dark experience and his reflections since being shaken up by the attack.
With support from NHS England, the AACE has importantly launched a national campaign called #WorkWithoutFear to highlight the profound impact of such abuse on the everyday lives of staff, and to raise awareness among the minority of the general public who may commit such offences to have respect for the people who are working to help them.