Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of assaults on NHS staff in England since the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak.

Data is not collected centrally on assaults on National Health Service staff in England. The 2019 NHS Staff Survey showed 15% of NHS staff experienced physical violence from members of the public and patients in the past year.

Any assault, physical or verbal, against NHS staff is unacceptable and should be reported and dealt with through the proper processes. The NHS has recently joined forces with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in a Joint Agreement on Offences Against Emergency Workers. This provides a framework to ensure effective investigation and prosecution of cases where staff are the victim of a crime and sets out the standards victims of these crimes can expect.