PARAMEDICS are becoming victims to more severe and violent unprovoked attacks from members of the public, an ambulance boss has revealed.

As a result, a number of initiatives to try and give paramedics greater protection are now being discussed at Dorset Ambulance.

Concerns over the safety of medics come in a week where a drunk soldier was convicted at Bournemouth Magistrates Court of punching a paramedic outside a town centre nightclub.

The paramedic is still recovering from his injuries two months after the attack. And on Thursday Cale Cunningham, of Poole, was convicted of wounding another paramedic with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Roger Ferre, director of operations at Dorset Ambulance, said: "The numbers of attacks on medics are staying about the same, but this could be due tounder-reporting by staff.

"What concerns us is that the severity of these attacks seem to be increasing."

In the past three months there have been 10 reported incidents of attacks on ambulance crews, rang-ing from verbal abuse to kicking and punching.

Trevor Jones, chairman of the Dorset Ambulance Trust, said: "It is a very real problem for our crews.

"Whenever they're called to an incident they can never be sure what they're going to be faced with, and on certain shifts there is every likelihood of them being threatened with violence.

"The trust has notices on all its vehicles saying that we will not hesitate to take proceedings against people who threaten our crews."

Mr Ferre added: "Usually it's people the worse for either drink or drugs.

"The problem is getting worse, though it's nowhere near as bad in Dorset as it is in some large cities."

Head of human resources at the ambulance service, Chris Thomas, said they were consider-ing all options to try and reduce violence against their staff.

"This is a very emotive subject," he added.