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Paramedic: 'I don't come to work to be spat at'

A paramedic has described being spat at and kicked while on duty.

Mike Duggan, a paramedic for West Midlands Ambulance service, told 5 live Afternoon Edition "the biggest issues that faces us on a Friday and Saturday night is verbal and physical abuse".

The number of violent assaults on ambulance service staff has more than doubled in the last five years.

According to figures from NHS Protect - the national body which collects data on all reported physical assaults on NHS workers in England, there were 395 physical assaults on the ambulance sector in 2010-2011 and 816 in 2014-2015.

This clip is from Afternoon Edition on 24 October 2016.

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52 seconds

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