Nearly one in five UK care workers feel unsafe while on shift, survey finds

Nearly one in five UK care workers feel unsafe while on shift, according to a new survey highlighting the array of pressures facing the frontline workforce.

The stark finding comes as part of a global survey published on the fifth anniversary of Covid being declared a global pandemic, amid warnings from the World Health Organization of a looming shortage of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030.

In the report from Uni Global Union, which surveyed more than 11,000 health and social care workers from 63 nations, with 2,132 in the UK including doctors, more than a third reported experiencing or witnessing violence or harassment at work at least monthly.

And in what the union described as a global staffing crisis, less than half of those surveyed worldwide believed their career to be sustainable until retirement age.

In the UK, where more than 700 care workers were polled, two-thirds said they were frequently too short-staffed to provide a high quality of care to patients, defined in the survey as “when the number of staff is too low compared to the needs of patients”. This included 33% who said this was “always” the case, while just 8% said they were “never” or “rarely” short-staffed.

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Source: The Independent, 10 March 2025