BMA calls for ‘stiffer sentences’ for those who attack GPs and staff

The BMA has called for ‘stiffer sentences’ for those who attack healthcare workers including GPs and practice staff.

Doctors attending the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) today passed a motion that said there must be ‘stiffer sentences for those who attack healthcare workers’.

However, another part of the motion calling for the ‘routine provision of self-defence training’ for ‘all clinical staff’ was lost.

Doctors also voted in favour of:

• ‘greater awareness of the prevalence of abuse towards healthcare staff’
• ‘greater support’ for ‘clinicians who are victims of abuse and malicious complaints’
• ‘support for healthcare workers who are victims of slanderous / malicious complaints’

Doctor representatives attending the conference in Brighton also today voted in favour of NHS organisations being mandated to carry out exit interviews with doctors who quit.

They are due to vote on an organised withdrawal of GP practices from Primary Care Networks (PCNs) by the end of the year tomorrow.

Criminal acts of violence at GP practices, reported to the police, have almost doubled in the last five years and increased year on year since 2017, a recent BMJ investigation found.

Last month, a GP practice stopped offering a face-to-face reception after staff suffered ‘excessive verbal abuse and physical intimidation’ from patients.

And another practice had to be evacuated with GP staff requiring stitches after a violent patient smashed up the surgery.

Updated NHS England advice said GP practices can now consider deregistering patients who have ‘unnecessarily persistent or unrealistic service demands that cause disruption’.