The BBC has found that violence and abuse against paramedics and emergency call handlers is on the rise, with reported cases increasing by more than a third since 2019.

Nearly 45,000 assaults were recorded by ambulance services across England over the past five years, with staff saying they were punched, kicked, threatened with weapons and subjected to racist, homophobic and religious abuse.

Paramedic Nutan Patel-West, 41, said she was racially abused “multiple times” during her shift and during a call-out in 2021, narrowly escaped serious injury after a glass ashtray was thrown at her. Went.

The government said it has a “zero-tolerance approach towards this type of behaviour” and warned that those attacking emergency workers could be jailed for up to two years.

Mrs Patel-West, who has worked for the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) for more than a decade, said: “I was verbally abused, racially abused, punched and stomped on. The knife was taken out.

“A patient at work said ‘You need to go back to your country, you’re not welcome here’ before he threw an ashtray at my head. He missed it by a few inches.

“I signed up for this job to help people, not for the sake of it.”

The paramedic said the incidents had affected his self-confidence.

“When you go back out after being abused, it heightens your senses and it creates fear inside you, especially on night shifts when you don’t know what to expect,” he said.

The BBC submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to every ambulance service in England, which revealed that 44,926 physical and verbal assaults were recorded on frontline and operations staff between 2019 and 2023.

There is an average of 173 assaults per week across England, although staff in Lancashire and Manchester said they believed the abuse was “underreported”.

Mrs Patel-West said, “I don’t report every incident because if I did I would never be away from the computer, sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day.”

Over the past four and a half years, NWAS recorded 1,281 physical assaults, 1,192 incidents of verbal abuse and threats, 711 cases of sexual abuse and 150 cases of racial abuse.

Emergency call handler James Shelley, 33, who works in the NWAS office in Manchester, said he was “shaken” after facing 11 minutes of homophobic abuse in a call earlier this year.

Mr Shelley said: “I picked up the phone from a gentleman whose mother had scabies. He asked me to send him a taxi and when I reminded him we were not a taxi service, he hurled homophobic abuse at me. Started doing it.”

“Normally I don’t get nervous, but it was 8 o’clock in the morning on a weekday. I arrived an hour later and he was very aggressive. I was shivering afterward.”

NWAS Violence Prevention and Reduction Manager Natalie Samuels urged the public to remain calm and respectful when dealing with emergency services.

“I understand it’s an emotional time when people need an ambulance, but our call handlers go through a set of questions to make sure we can give people the right care,” she said.

“We just ask the public to stick to the questions and answer them as calmly as possible.”

“It doesn’t matter how long you’ve done this job or in what capacity, at some point you’re going to be scared,” said NWAS paramedic Lisa Morley, 38, speaking to the BBC in Blackpool.

He added, “Although abuse is happening more frequently, it doesn’t happen to every patient. We just try to focus on the good jobs and the help you can provide.”

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