North East Ambulance staff attacked 552 times in a year

Ambulances have also been attacked, including this one in Sunderland last year

Ambulance staff were attacked 552 times while on duty in the North East last year - the highest number in the past five years.

North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) said the most common type of abuse faced by ambulance crews was threatening behaviour.

Nationally, 32 ambulance staff were abused every day in 2021.

A national campaign - Work Without Fear - has now been started to raise awareness and support staff affected.

In the past five years, NEAS staff reported 2,499 incidents of assault and abuse.

The most significant rise covered the first lockdown in 2020 when assaults jumped up by 23% compared to the year before, with alcohol the most prominent factor behind assaults.

Alcohol accounted for about 27% of the overall incidents reported by NEAS staff between 2016 and 2021.

Lauren Kay, who is training to be a paramedic, said she was verbally abused by a drug user who said she "would burn in hell"

Lauren Kay, 23, was just three weeks into her paramedic training in Newcastle when she was threated by a drug user.

"He immediately got very aggressive and spent a lot of time asking me over and over again how I slept at night, calling me a murderer and told me he was going to hurt me when he found me and he hoped I would burn in hell," she said.

"It's not exactly secret where we work so it does make you look over your shoulder a little bit for a few days."

Previously she worked as a 999 and 111 health advisor in the Emergency Operations Centre at NEAS and said she was regularly subjected to abuse over the phone.

Ambulance worker Kelly Tipp said she wears a body camera to work to protect herself

In the past 12 months Hartlepool ambulance worker Kelly Tipp has experienced four assaults, one verbal and three physical.

"I don't come to work to be assaulted, physically or verbally," she said.

"Sometimes you think, 'what's the point? Why am I doing it?'. It makes you feel sad.

"Sometimes you get angry about it."

Ms Tipp now wears a body camera on every shift.

"We don't have anything to defend ourselves if somebody is violent and aggressive towards us so the camera for me is an added extra to help me protect myself," she said.