A 50 per cent increase in the number of assaults on staff at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals has made them among the most dangerous places in London for mainstream hospital staff to work.

Between April 2005 and March 2006, there were 107 attacks on staff at the two hospitals, equating to 23 assaults for every 1,000 staff. Over the same period the previous year, there were 72 attacks, or 17 assaults per 1,000 staff.

A spokesman for the hospitals said bosses take attacks on staff very seriously and try to make sure that every attack is meticulously recorded.

He said: "We have posters up everywhere in the trust saying attacks on staff won't be tolerated, but I don't doubt that attacks on staff are up. We try to do everything we can to protect our staff and, through proper reporting, can make sure we get a true picture of what's happening. Then we can do something about a particular environment to prevent recurrent attacks."

The only London hospital trust with more assaults was Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust, which reported 174 attacks on staff, an average of 24 assaults per 1,000 staff. Attacks at mental hospitals are generally much higher.

At Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust attacks decreased by 30 per cent, from 298 to 207, over the same period. Just over 90 per cent of attacks on the trust's staff take place in and around inpatient and outpatient wards such as those at Colindale Hospital and Edgware Hospital, while the rest occur when staff work with patients in the community.

A mental health trust spokesman said the figures reflected the significant effort it had made to learn from all incidents and identify necessary changes.

"In our trust most incidents are as a direct result of the patient's mental health problem," he said.

There was one less attack on staff at the Royal Free hospital - down from 47 assaults in 2004-05 to 46 in 2005-06. Charges pursued against six people in the past 12 to 14 months have resulted in prosecutions, Antisocial Behaviour Orders or formal warnings.

At Barnet Primary Care Trust, which manages Finchley Memorial Hospital and Edgware Walk-in Centre, there were just seven attacks, down from five in 2004-05.

The figures, which were collected by the NHS Security Management Service and released last Wednesday, reveal CONTINUED Pg 3 that the number of assaults on staff throughout England has declined by more than two per cent.

It regards this as a significant achievement' as violence and abuse showed a year-on-year increase until 2003 when the service was set up. The number of people prosecuted for assaulting NHS staff in England also increased by 12 per cent in the last year, from 759 to 850.

The statistics also show that assaults on acute and foundation hospital staff increased by 342, while those against staff working in ambulances, at primary care trusts and in mental health and learning disability departments, decreased.