A FORMER nurse at a Taunton hospital has spoken of the abuse she suffered at the hands of patients as it is revealed almost a third of staff say they have experienced abuse at work.

The shocking figures were published on Friday for all NHS Trusts across England as part of the 2016 staff surveys.

The statistics revealed that at the Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Musgrove Park Hospital, 29 per cent of staff who took part in the annual survey said they had experienced abuse, harassment or bullying from patients, relatives or the public in the last 12 months, compared to 27 per cent nationally.

Another 18 per cent also said they had experienced physical violence from patients, relatives or the public in the past 12 months.

This is up by four per cent compared to results for 2015, and is higher than the national average of 15 per cent.

A total of 2,079 staff took part in this year’s survey, and a large per cent of those who said they had been subjected to physical violence were nurses.

One former nurse, who left Musgrove towards the end of last year, said that on some wards abuse from patients was normal.

She said more training needed to be given to make sure staff were equipped to deal with such incidents.

“I was hit and kicked a few times by patients on the ward I was working on,” she said.

“The ward was a medical ward however, we had patients with dementia and mental health problems, with general nurses who had no training in preventing violence or knowing what to do.

“On one occasion, one of the patients stood on my foot and then slapped me quite hard leaving a hand print on my face.

“Another colleague of mine was left with a fractured wrist.

“I don’t blame the patients at all, it’s not their fault, and a lot of the times they don’t know what they are doing but it would have helped to have had some training.

“We always made sure to report it to our ward sister who was brilliant at voicing our concerns about being given some sort of training but this never happened.

“I was also confronted by family members a few times, with one man getting right up in my face to shout at me.

“But we never really reported these incidents as you kind of expected it, which is quite bad really.

“It’s not just hospitals, incidents like this happen at care homes and in the community. I think there needs to be better training for staff.”

Musgrove had one of the highest scores for staff reporting they had experienced physical violence. The lowest score was eight per cent and the highest was 21 per cent.

Of the 18 per cent who had experienced physical violence, 12 people said it had happened on one or two occasions, and four said it had happened be- tween three and five times.

However, the trust ranked in the 20 per cent of trusts overall in the survey results, with the majority of staff recommending it as a good place to work.

It also said it had now set up a new training package to help staff deal with violent patients.

Peter Lewis, deputy chief executive at Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This year almost 2,100 members of staff at Musgrove completed the NHS staff survey, compared with 380 in 2014/15.

“The results show that we are still in the top 20 percent of trusts for our survey results, but there were some areas highlighted where we could do better.

“While we are pleased that we have a culture where staff feel supported to report inci- dents, we absolutely recognise that we need to do more to re- duce the number of those who experience physical violence, harassment, bullying and abuse from patients and relatives.

“In 2015/16 we gave almost 700,000 episodes of patient care and the majority of the incidents reported were on medical and surgical wards, usually with the increasing number of elderly and confused patients we are caring for or those still recovering from anaesthetic or sedation.

“Following the increasing number of elderly and confused patients and those with dementia being admitted to our wards, at the end of 2016 we put a new training package in place that helps our staff deal with patients who are confused and become violent through no fault of their own.

“The training also helps our staff to de-escalate tensions and deal with abuse or violence.”