Doctors face increasing abuse from unhappy patients

‘The last year-and-a-half has been a challenging time for doctors and patients but violence is unacceptable’

DOCTORS are experiencing rising levels of abuse from patients struggling to access help, or unhappy with the service available, a survey by the British Medical Association shows.

The poll of 2,400 medics found two thirds have seen a rise in such incidents since the start of the pandemic, with GPS most likely to come under attack.

More than half of GPS and a third of hospital doctors had experienced verbal abuse in the last month. Dissatisfaction with the service provided, or access to it, was the most common factor driving such incidents, with three quarters of GPS citing this reason.

The British Medical Association (BMA) warned of a “rising level of abuse” towards doctors as it called on the public to be “kind and considerate” when contacting GPS.

Since the start of the pandemic, the NHS has introduced systems of “online triage” which mean that many patients could not see a GP without first undergoing some type of remote assessment. Dr Richard Vautrey, BMA GP committee chair, said: “The last year-and-a-half has been an incredibly challenging time for both doctors and patients, and many doctors share the frustration of their patients around unfamiliar ways of working, or if waiting times are too long. However, abuse, violence and threats are absolutely unacceptable and should never be tolerated.” He said the public need to understand the “precarious state” the NHS is in, and have “realistic expectations” of demands on them.

“Alongside the urgent need for support for general practice and the wider NHS from the Government so that we stand a chance of meeting the growing needs of our patients, we’d continue to remind the public to be kind and considerate when contacting their surgery – we are humans, too,” he said.