Knowledge and support

One in four women in the UK will experience domestic violence at some point in their lifetime, which means that every practice nurse will have contact, often repeatedly, with women who are affected. While Womens' Aid's experience of working alongside healthcare professionals demonstrates that there is generally a will to engage with domestic violence as a healthcare issue, the specialists at its national training centre often hear from health professionals that they lack the confidence to raise the subject of domestic violence with patients. Often, nurses aren't given the support they require to properly assess patients for risk of domestic violence and the information needed to refer them to specialist services.