Attacked on the frontline every two minutes: LBC investigation uncovers shocking level of public sector assaults

14 May 2025, 08:13 | Updated: 14 May 2025, 17:22

Attacked on the frontline every two minutes: LBC investigation uncovers shocking level of public sector assaults

By Connor Hand

@Connor_HandLBC

Doctors, nurses, teachers, police and prison officers are physically assaulted every two minutes in Britain, analysis from LBC suggests - with the head of the Royal College of Nursing warning their members have been threatened by thugs in balaclavas wielding baseball bats.

The shocking investigation is likely to raise serious questions about the measures being taken to keep our public sector heroes safe at work, and comes a matter of days after a prison officer was allegedly attacked with boiling water by Southport killer Axel Rudakubana.

LBC conducted an extensive analysis of NHS data, home office statistics and freedom of information requests. Combined, they laid bare the scale of violent attacks against those who keep Britain safe from danger, tend to the sick and educate our children.

Overall, LBC’s figures suggest that at least 625 public sector workers were assaulted per day in 2024, working at around one every two minutes.

Analysis of NHS England’s staff survey, for example, indicated that over 217,000 incidents of physical abuse against staff members took place in 2024 alone, representing an increase of over 15,000 cases on the previous year.

Speaking to LBC's Shelagh Fogarty, Nicola Ranger, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said their members were facing unprecedented levels of violence:

"I recently spoke to a nurse [whose] colleague was racially abused on the ward and then the relatives then came back, five of them in balaclavas and baseball bats.

“I have never, never ever in my entire career heard anything of that scale. I've worked with nurses who've had arms broken, I've been spat at myself, been kicked... we're going to do a lot of listening to our nurses to really see how do we stop this.””

With the scale of abuse escalating, several frontline NHS workers opened up about the sickening abuse they have experienced at work.

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Heather Beadie, a paramedic from Penrith, Cumbria, told LBC she has feared for her life on several occasions when attending callouts, homing in on a drug-related callout she attended.

“We've gone in to assess them and within seconds of us arriving in the property, this patient has basically jumped up and has just started to hit us and to kick us,” Heather recalled.

“You've got somebody who's just basically trying to hit out at you and is verbally abusive, saying that they're going to kill you.”

Heather admitted the ordeal, and other episodes of abuse she’s faced, have made her question whether she can continue to do a job she otherwise loves: “There have been times where I have thought to myself, ‘Is this job worth it? Am I going to be able to go home to my daughter tonight? Am I going to end up being put in a position where I'm physically hurt that means I can't do my role again?’

“There have been times where I've felt that and it is terrifying.”

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Often, Heather explains, it is not the injuries she and her colleagues sustain that have the most enduring effect on them - it is the mental toll of such attacks.

“Most of the time physical injuries will heal, but the impact it has on them is forever there. It doesn't go away. The mental health aspect of it, where they do have nightmares or they are scared to go out and do the job, or they have flashbacks, we do see it,” Heather said.

Her view is echoed by other NHS workers we spoke to.

Fellow paramedic Gary Watson was inspired to join the London Ambulance Service having successfully resuscitated a swimmer whilst working as a lifeguard over a decade ago. In 2018, he was left with a torn ligament in his shoulder and serious injuries to his neck, face and throat after being assaulted by a member of the public in the back of his ambulance.

“Within seconds of us being on the ambulance, he [the attacker] shot up from the bed and has attempted to kick a member of staff out the side door of the ambulance and then has turned around to myself and my colleague, first of all, pinning me to the bed, being punched and being held down, being throttled.

“I spent three months off sick, recovering from the physical injuries and having physiotherapy and then slowly being brought back into work. Then [there was] the psychological side of things. I didn't realise I had a problem until about a year afterwards where my wife recognised that something wasn't right and then I eventually sort of admitted that I wasn't well and I needed to get help.”

Since the incident, Gary has had another three periods of sick leave owing to his injuries, and warns that the violence witnessed by him and his colleagues is showing no signs of abating.

“There have been recent assaults on vehicles where they use sledgehammers to put through windscreens,” Gary continued. “It's just unacceptable - the effect that it must have had on the crew that that happened to is just phenomenal. I [can’t] imagine what they were going through.”

Dr Lewis Hughes, meanwhile, told us his colleagues have experienced “broken eye sockets, broken jaws, punches [and] bruises”, with some even having to repeatedly receive blood tests “to look for any blood borne virus because they may have had spit or bloods in their eye, in their mouth”.

Regrettably, this worrying trend is not limited to the health service.

Our analysis of Department for Education data shows that secondary school pupils attacked teachers and support staff over 134,000 times in the last three full academic years.

The safety of prison officers has also been magnified in recent weeks after separate attacks allegedly carried out by Rudakabana and Hashem Abedi, who was amongst those responsible for the Manchester arena bombing in 2017. Overall, prison officers were assaulted over 10,500 times in 2024.

What’s more, around 43,000 police officers were punched, kicked and attacked with weapons in 2023/24 - an increase of 17% on the previous year.

Alan Lofthouse, Deputy Head of Health at Unison, told LBC News’ Simon Conway that NHS staff are facing unacceptable levels of violence and abuse—including racism, sexism and sexual harassment—leaving many traumatised and questioning their future in the profession, and called for urgent, consistent support and safer working environments to help with staff retention.

“We’ve got people, you know, people say, I don't know, I got assaulted and I went to return to work and I got in my car to drive to my ambulance station or to my workplace and I physically couldn't turn the key in the engine,” he said.

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In December, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley detailed the “ghastly” violence his officers face in a conversation with LBC’s Nick Ferrari.

“We have 18 officers a day assaulted,” Sir Mark said. “It’s always physical. About half of them are injured. Of those, two a week are serious injuries.

“It’s far different from decades ago - the aggression and violence officers face is really ghastly.”

Sir Mark also elaborated on why, in his view, our public sector heroes are on the receiving end of an escalation of violent attacks.

“I think there’s more weapons out there. The second thing is I think there’s just less respect for authority,” Sir Mark observed. “All institutions suffer [from] this, policing, journalism, politics, teachers, doctors and nurses… assaults in casualty, the challenges that teachers face.

The Commissioner added that the increasing public criticism of these institutions such as the police, NHS and schools risked “legitimising the violence and the anger that’s out there”.

In 2018, the Emergency Workers Assault Act was introduced following significant pressure from Nick Ferrari’s Guard Our Emergency Services campaign. The act made it a specific offence to attack an emergency worker, and can result in a two-year jail term for offenders.

An NHS spokesperson said: “It is totally unacceptable that NHS staff are facing assault and abuse in the workplace, and it must be addressed – we urge anyone affected to report incidents to their employer and the police.

“We know that the most important way to stamp out incidents of unacceptable behaviour is to give people the confidence to report it, and it is important that the voice of every member of NHS staff is heard and acted upon.”