Over 300 assaults on ambulance staff
More than 300 Scottish Ambulance Service staff have been physically or verbally abused in the past year according to latest statistics.
The figures show that 328 staff have suffered abuse, attacks with weapons and death threats this year, with ambulance staff having to deal with incidents of abuse almost every day.
Of these 328 incidents – an increase of 51 over the previous year - 21 staff were threatened with either a knife or bottle, while 140 were either punched, kicked or spat on.
There have also been 124 incidents this year of verbal abuse towards staff.
Michael Dickson, Chief Executive of the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “We strongly condemn violence against our staff. They have the right to carry out their work helping patients and saving lives without fear of assault or abuse.
“Our staff are having to deal with incidents nearly every single day and that is totally unacceptable. No form of abuse will be tolerated and we will continue to work with Police Scotland to take action against perpetrators."
The majority of the assaults or abuse was in the West region with 176 this year. While in the East, there have been 123 incidents of physical or verbal abuse and in the North there have been 27 this year.
Contact Information
Scottish Ambulance Press Office
Notes to editors
Notes
- Yearly data is for the period October 2022 to October 2023. The data shows that there were 328 incidents in Scotland in 2023, compared with 277 incidents in 2022, an increase of 51.
- The most common time for assaults is between 2100 and 2200; the time with the least is 0500 to 0600.
- The most common days for physical assaults are either Friday, Saturday and Sunday
- The most common month is August
- For the year Oct 22 to Oct 23, there were 67 incidents of verbal abuse in the West, 40 in the East and 16 in the North
- SAS has a range of measures in place to help protect staff, such peer support and training in dynamic risk assessment, and areas where staff have previously faced violence or threatening behaviour are taken into consideration and communicated to attending crews.