Abuse towards London Ambulance staff on the rise

Physical or verbal abuse directed at London Ambulance Service (LAS) staff is on the rise, with the number of incidents reported this year increasing by 12%.

Between January and the end of April this year, there were 781 incidents. Last year over the same time period there were 691.

Additional figures released from the service's staff survey found 55% of staff working in 999 control rooms experienced harassment or abuse from patients, their relatives or of the public at least once in the past year.

The figures' release coincides with Thursday's episode of BBC One's Ambulance documentary, where a man bombards call handlers with dozens of sexually suggestive calls.

At one point he rings seven times in an hour while at the same time staff are directing four separate callers on how to give chest compressions to people whose hearts have stopped beating until paramedics arrive to help.

To manage this the staff are told to start terminating calls if the man does not require an ambulance, whereupon he becomes aggressive.

Emergency call co-ordinator Jude said: "It's a very stressful job and you want to do everything in your power to make sure those in dire need get answered.

"When you have to deal with someone that's abusing the system it has an effect. It plays on people's minds."

"Each of these calls mean we are unable to answer the phone to someone who may be in a life-and-death situation," said Stuart Crichton, the service's director of 999 operations.

The service also revealed:

• There are approximately seven reported incidents every day against ambulance crews and call handlers in London
• Almost a quarter of control room staff had experienced abuse on more than 10 occasions in the past 12 months
• There was an increase of 11.3% of all violence, aggression and abuse incidents in 2024 compared to 2023 towards staff
• Physical assaults increased by 8% in 2024 compared to 2023, while verbal abuse increased by 13% in 2024 compared to 2023

LAS has now ed an ambulance sector-wide campaign #Workwithoutfear highlighting the effects that daily abuse can have on staff and volunteers.

"Whilst the vast majority of our callers and patients are extremely courteous towards our staff, abuse – either verbal or physical – is unacceptable," said Mr Crichton.

"Where this is no medical reason that could explain why a person is abusive or violent, we will work with police and partners to make sure we can take action and whenever possible push for prosecutions to prevent this behaviour and protect our staff."

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