One in three nurses and healthcare workers say they have had more abuse in the past year than ever before. A study of close to 500 nurses, health and social care workers, conducted by Florence, a healthcare technology company, found that almost half of those surveyed have faced both physical and verbal abuse while at work. A third say levels of abuse have gotten considerably worse since the pandemic.
Two in five have experienced racist abuse, while 7% have been subject to sexist abuse in the workplace. Swearing, negative comments and shouting are other common mistreatments.
Nearly a third of those polled (29%) say they’ve received verbal, physical or online abuse at work at least once a week, with 7% suffering abuse as often as once a day. The majority of abuse, according to those surveyed, is coming from frustrated patients (64%) or patients' friends and families (28%) whose own frustrations are boiling over.
