New data showing the number of healthcare workers hospitalised after being assaulted at work has more than doubled in a decade confirms years of warnings about worsening safety of healthcare workers, say the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF).
National figures released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show assault has now climbed from the fourth to the second leading cause of hospitalisation for injuries among healthcare workers. By comparison, assault ranks seventh for the general Australian population.
Assault-related hospitalisations among healthcare workers rose from 49 in 2015–16 to 126 in 2024–25 – a jump in the rate from 4.3 to 8.1 per 100,000 healthcare workers.
“This should not be a wake-up call, because nurses and their colleagues have been sounding the alarm about this for years,” said ACN Chief Executive Officer, Adjunct Professor Kathryn Zeitz FACN. “But this data definitively shows that there can be no more excuses for inaction.”
“Health services need to act now to rein in this epidemic of occupational violence. Health service boards must make addressing occupational violence a priority,” said Adjunct Professor Zeitz. “They need to closely monitor and respond to incidents against their staff and ensure that anti-occupational violence measures are being enforced and working.”
The ANMF said the findings of the AIHW report reinforced what the ANMF already knew was occurring in health and aged care settings across the country.
“Nurses, midwives and personal care workers continue to be attacked, abused and intimidated in their workplaces. We also know that workplace violence and aggression (WVA) is underreported, so the true scale of the problem could be much worse,” ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler explained.
“Occupational violence and aggression in the workplace is causing significant physical and psychological harm and trauma which is impacting health workers and their capacity to deliver care.”
There is also still work to be done to prevent injury of healthcare workers more broadly. The AIHW report found there were 7,416 injury hospitalisations among healthcare workers over the 10 years to 2024–25, including 819 in 2024–25 alone – a rate of 53 per 100,000 workers, or about 1 in 2,000.
“While rising hospitalisations for assault are the standout area of concern – we must do more to prevent falls, which is the leading cause of injury hospitalisation; as well as contact with objects such as knives, tools or machines,” said Adjunct Professor Zeitz.
“People who show up each day to care for others should not be subject to undue risk of harm to themselves. The unspoken stories here are of those who were injured and never returned to work.”
“And for our health system more broadly, we cannot afford to be losing nurses and their colleagues to preventable injury – particularly from violence.”
“Urgent action, including improved staffing levels, and additional security measures, is needed, so nurses, midwives and personal care workers are safe on the job. There must be zero tolerance for any form of WVA against frontline health workers,” Ms Butler added.
