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London Ambulance Service says more than half of its frontline staff have been attacked while on duty with 44% experiencing sexual harassment by patients or by members of the public which is why its new campaign focuses on respect.
New figures from the capital’s ambulance service show that 562 frontline staff were assaulted more than three times in the past year.
The Christmas campaign, All we want for Christmas is… RESPECT, is fronted by the experience of paramedic Emily Jackson and calls on the public to show respect for those who care for them both in ambulances and on the phone when speaking to control room staff.
Emily shares the experience of the most traumatic assault which happened one December when she was called to a pub to treat a man seriously ill after drinking and taking drugs. She recalls: “It was this time of year – when people are out drinking or partying. Our patient was unconscious on the floor and I was really worried about him.
“He was struggling to breathe and I worried he was going to stop breathing and go into cardiac arrest. We were getting ready to do an ECG when he regained consciousness. He was friendly at first then suddenly switched.
“He looked ready to fight the whole pub and made sexually aggressive comments to me. He was throwing punches and I got hit in the face.”
The attacker left the pub but walked back in soon after, she explained: “It was like a horror film – I just froze. He threatened to rape me and said he would dump my body in an alleyway.” Emily’s attacker was later jailed for eight months for beating and threatening an emergency worker but she felt the impact mentally soon after the incident. Since this she has worked on a project to protect call handlers from abuse over the phone..
London Ambulance Service was the first ambulance service in the country to set up a Violence Reduction Unit to support colleagues to report crimes and work closely with police to pursue abusers. CEO Jason Killens said: “If abuse happens, we work with the police to ensure it is investigated and offenders are punished.”
For more information on the campaign visit London Ambulance Service.
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