Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 9 March 2026.
Saqib Bhatti
Shadow Minister (Education)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what national policy interventions are being developed to help reduce abusive incidents against emergency ambulance workers.
Karin Smyth
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Everyone working in the National Health Service has a fundamental right to be safe at work, including ambulance workers. At a national level there are several policy interventions being implemented and developed to help prevent and reduce violence against NHS staff.
In April 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced that the Social Partnership Forum’s recommendations on tackling and reducing violence, part of the 2023 Agenda for Change pay deal, had been accepted in full. This includes measures to improve data and reporting, strengthen risk assessment, and improve training and support for victims. This will be bolstered by the introduction of a new set of staff standards, as detailed in the 10-Year Health Plan. The standards will be included in the NHS Oversight Framework and act as an early warning signal for the Care Quality Commission.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England and it is responsible for developing and consulting on its methodology for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements.
