FOI 304-2025 / Mar 2025 / Attacks in hospitals
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 304-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 10th March 2025, and clarification received on 11th March 2025, as follows:
Please can I ask the following in respect of 2023/24, 2022/23 and 2021/22.
- How many patients reported suffering physical attacks while in hospitals in your force area over each of the last three years?
- Please can you break down the figures, e.g. into assaults, indecent and sexual assaults.
- How many arrests were made and charges brought against the assailants relating to this drugs matter.
On 11th March we contacted you seeking requesting clarification as follows:
‘Where you have stated, ‘physical attacks,’ please clarify exactly which offences you require us to search for.
For example, are you asking for all offences that fall under the ‘Violence Against the Person’ and ‘Sexual Offences’ categories or something else?
You may find the below information relating to Home Office notifiable offence categories of assistance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counting-rules-for-recorded-crime
Once you have accessed the link please go into the table ‘Counting rules notifiable offences and notifiable reported incidents 2024 to 2025’:
notifiable-offence-and-notifiable-reported-incidents-aug-2024.ods’
On 11th March you provided the following clarification:
I'm after all offences that fall under the ‘Violence Against the Person’ and ‘Sexual Offences’ categories.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not held in a readily retrievable format. The business area has conducted a search for all Sexual offences and Violence Against the Person offences recorded during the period 1st January 2022 and 31st December 2024, with a location premise type of ‘hospital’, or where the location premises name included ‘Hospital’. This search returned 281 records and, in order to ascertain whether the victim of each investigation was a patient, it would require manual review of each and every investigation on an individual basis. The business area has advised that this would take approximately 5 minutes per record and would therefore exceed the cost threshold of £450, which equates to 18 hours work at a standard rate of £25 per hour, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. An estimate of the cost involved is set out below:
281 @ 5 minutes per record = 1405 minutes / 60 = 23 hours
In accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to refining your request and can advise that it may be possible to conduct searches within the fees limit if you were to reduce the time period to, say, one year.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB