Big rise in attacks on ambulance staff

West Midlands Ambulance Service staff, who cover Shropshire, were punched, kicked, bitten and spat at while carrying out their jobs, new figures show.

Assaults have risen by 11.5 per cent, up from 207 incidents between 2013-14 to 231 for the current financial year.

A Freedom of Information request has also revealed the range of attacks, which includes being pushed into a wall, sexual assault and staff being grabbed and scratched, struck with a walking stick and even tackled to the floor.

Ambulance technician Jacs Murphy, based in Donnington, Telford, said: "Lots of times it's drink related.

"Getting touched up, sexually touched up, getting patients lashing out at you, constantly abusing you."

The ambulance service said Ms Murphy's experiences were not rare and had become an everyday occurrence.

Steve Elliker, a security manager at the service, said more people should be prosecuted for such attacks.

He said: "I get frustrated sometimes if I'm being honest with the outcome of a criminal prosecution because there's always mitigation.

"Some of that mitigation may be something totally out of character such as they had a drink or they took some drugs.

"I have a very simplistic view. They had a choice, they decided to drink.

"Our members of staff who attended to them never had a choice. They had to go because they had called 999.

"That's what angers me more than anything else – that we can't always get the successful prosecution that we always want."

Conflict resolution training is now a normal part of security aimed at helping frontline staff defuse potentially violent situations.