Rising number of assaults on ambulance staff: GMB branch secretary for North West speaks out

What have the figures shown?

An investigation by the GMB union has shown that ambulance workers have been subject to at least 9,500 violent attacks in the line of duty over the last five years.

Attacks took place more than 9,565* times from the financial year 2017/18 to 21/22, and included crews being bitten, head-butted, spat at and struck with weapons, whilst 1,248 of these were sexual assaults.

*The true numbers of assaults are likely to be far higher as only eight out of 13 ambulance trusts across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland responded to GMB’s Freedom of Information Act request.

What is the situation in Lancashire?

Unfortunately, the North West Ambulance Service was one of the five trusts who had not supplied their data to the GMB union yet.

The GBM has said they will update us when this information comes in.

Read more: Police appeal for witnesses of a crash outside Deepdale Stadium in which a pedestrian was seriously injured.

What does the GMB North West branch say about the figures?

Steve Rice, who has been a paramedic for 46 years, and the GMB NWAS branch secretary for 26 years, said: “I've worked in the service quite a long time now, and it's something that's always been present, but not as relevant as it is today because it seems to be going up year on year. Whether that's anything to do with how society is or whether it's anything to do with longer waiting times, I don't know but it does need to be sorted. We were instrumental in pushing through the protected protectors legislation** a couple of years ago, but really, that hasn't made that much difference obviously because the figures are still going up but I think that's more about whether the CPS are actually active on that legislation.”

**GMB’s ambulance members successfully changed the law in 2018 when the Assaults Against Emergency Workers (Offences) Act made assaults on ambulance workers an aggravating factor for sentencing.

What does Steve think can be done?

According to Steve, at GMB’s annual congress in Brighton yesterday (Sunday, June 4), some branches were calling for the introduction of stab proof vests for ambulance workers, but he does not agree this is the answer.

Steve explains: “I don't think we should be going into anywhere that may require a stab vest! If we find ourselves in situation where we need a stab vest, it should have been risk assed prior to that. One of the issues we do have is once we know an address, getting them flagged properly. I think there needs to be more investment in the computer system so that it is able to flag individuals as opposed to addresses because currently we can only flag addresses, and most people phone off mobile phones so it's quite difficult to actually flag an individual that has previously assaulted ambulance staff so a bit of investment needs to be done on that in my opinion.”