ACCIDENT and emergency staff in the UK reported more than 1.3 million verbal and physical assaults by patients and visitors in a year, a new study has revealed.

The shocking figures show a staggering 3,680 attacks every day are committed on A&E stafff.

The research from the UK reveals that emergency staff in 18 countries have now resigned themselves to patient violence as part of their job.

In the UK there was a total of 1,343,464 reported assaults on frontline staff in 2016.

And around the world researchers found the one in four emergency staff suffered some sort of physical abuse.

Researchers from Lancaster University found the highest reports of both verbal and physical aggression are in A&E departments, with nurses subject to regular verbal and physical abuse.

For the work the team went through questionnaires and surveys taken by staff working in 18 countries.

Clinical psychologist Dr Ian Smith from Lancaster University said: "Staff appear to passively accept violence and aggression, often when preventative and reactive strategies were inconsistently enforced."

One healthcare worker said: "People can swear at us, spit at us, bite at us...try and hurt us and nobody puts an incident report in."

It was also seen that some staff saw some patients as being able to control their violence more than other, with one saying, “if the patient has dementia, that's a bit different than a drunk patient or just a patient angry about waiting time".

The researchers said some workers often missed signs of increasing aggression before an attack, and found it hard to understand why they were being attacked when they were trying to help.

Staff also found it difficult to be both a caregiver and the target of abuse, with one saying, "my biggest hurdle was that I feel like a victim, rather than getting to be in the ‘superman’ role".

The study, which appears in the International Journal of Emergency Nursing, also found staff working on their own can often feel inadequate and guilty.

One member of staff who replied to the survey said: "Nobody cared at all, not even the head nurse. You feel abandoned."

It was found experiencing violence and aggression led to feelings of powerlessness, with some reluctant to work in Emergency Departments.

Signs put up in hospitals warning visitors that police and security teams will escort them out the hospital if they are abuse are ignored, the study found.

Some staff were said to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and were left with serious injuries from attacks.

One staff member said: “I’m always worried whether the person will come back”, and another staff member added, “I ended up tearing cartilage in my left knee, ended up having surgery”.

The experience of violence and aggression also had an effect on the ability or willingness of staff to do their job.

An A&E staff member said: "A female patient...came into be treated. For some reason this triggered a post traumatic reaction for me. I instantly became very shaky, nauseated, and started crying...I then went to counselling for a couple of months, I think.

"My biggest hurdle...was [that I felt], and still do, feel like a victim, rather than getting to be in the ‘superman’ role."

Authors Dr Smith and Dr Rebecca Ashton said: "These accounts imply that staff's sense of self-worth was dependent on their ability to care and ‘rescue’ patients."

In conclusion they said: “Violence and aggression in the emergency department can often be an overwhelming yet inevitable experience for staff.

“A strong organisational commitment to reducing violence and aggression is imperative.”

The psychologists conducting the study also found that some staff had become "less tolerant of aggressive behaviour" which sometimes led to an increasing number of violent incidents.