Setting safe parameters for 999 staff

MANY years ago when I was a local newspaper reporter, I took a story to my editor. "My police contact says an ambulance paramedic was assaulted last night by someone they were taking to hospital."

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"Nonsense," was his reply. "No one attacks ambulance crews, least of all the patient. Never heard of such a thing. Go back and check your source, Richard."

The story was true and so extraordinarily unusual - this was 1974 - that it made the front page of our little weekly paper for the following two editions.

Times have changed. An investigation by colleagues at my other day job, Good Morning Britain, this week established that assaults on ambulance crews have increased by a shocking 15%.