DUP Health Spokesperson Diane Dodds MLA has voiced serious concern over the scale of violence and aggression directed at healthcare workers in Northern Ireland.

According to new figures released by the Health Minister, over 70,000 incidents of abuse have been recorded within Health Trusts over the last five-year period.

The data reveals 60,000 reported physical attacks and more than 12,000 cases of verbal abuse. The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust recorded the highest number of physical assaults, more than doubling the figures seen in the next highest area, the Southern Trust.

Reflecting on the findings, the Upper Bann MLA said: "Figures provided to me by the Health Minister demonstrate the level of abuse health staff face simply doing their job. 60,000 physical attacks and over 12,000 incidents of verbal abuse have been recorded over the last five years. I imagine there were thousands of others too which staff didn't even record." Mrs Dodds noted that the statistics only represent staff within the regional Health Trusts and likely underestimate the true scale of the problem across the wider sector, which includes private care homes, independent providers, and health centres.

"The often-pressurised working environment of health and care staff is difficult enough without the regular threat of violence," she continued. "It is important that those guilty of such attacks are punished appropriately to discourage others and repeated behaviour."

The MLA intends to seek further detail on the data to understand the impact of substance abuse on these incidents, as well as the proportion of cases involving patients with severe mental illness or intellectual disabilities. She also expressed interest in the wider consequences of the violence, including the cost of service disruption and the length of time staff are forced to take off work due to injuries.

She concluded: "Unfortunately, individual staff can sometimes unavoidably end up in difficult and vulnerable situations that those operating in some other sectors would never countenance. They deserve our immense gratitude".