Study findings

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced findings from a recent study showing that verbal abuse, intimidation and attacks are still very real threats faced by community based nurses on a regular basis. The study highlights some worrying statistics for NHS staff that regularly carry out lone working as part of their jobs: over 60% of nurses taking part have been subjected to abuse in the last two years; over 10% have been victims of physical abuse over the same time period; nearly 40% felt risk to lone workers has increased in the last two years; and over 35% felt factors such as increased substance abuse was contributing to that risk.

Supported by Reliance High-Tech (supplier of the Reliance Protect solution to lone workers in the NHS) and Connexion2 (manufacturer of the identicom lone worker device), the study was conducted jointly by the RCN and Sheffield Hallam University and involved nearly 800 RCN members taking part in a webbased questionnaire.