Violence against nurses: are the penalties tough enough?

Nursing staff face more than double the risk of verbal assault or violence at work as the general working population and acute mental health nursing staff report the highest prevalence. Yet violence against nurses and other healthcare staff is under-reported in the NHS. We outline what nurses can do if they have been subjected to verbal abuse or physical attack by patients, service users or relatives. We look at how prison terms for perpetrators are being used by the courts, the cases for and against use of body-worn cameras in healthcare and find out how much violence towards staff is costing the NHS.