Latest figures show that 1,383 front-line workers locally in a year were kicked, punched, bitten, slapped or even stabbed with scalpels while trying to do their job.

Health experts say the real number is higher as many cases are unreported.

Workers considered to be most at-risk at Portsmouth City Teaching Primary Care Trust are now being handed panic buttons which look like ID cards.

They provide an audio link to the police when activated and record events to be used as evidence.

Workers can also get devices similar to rape alarms which emit a piercing sound when set off.

The rise in violence is blamed on rocketing alcohol and drug-related hospital admissions.

NHS workers also think they are targeted because people think they are a soft touch and that they will get away with it.

Some are so fed up they are quitting the NHS altogether.

Mental health and learning disabilities trust Hampshire Partnership recorded the most attacks – 978 – due to the fact it cares for patients with the most challenging behaviour.

But Portsmouth City Teaching Primary Care Trust had the highest rate of assaults among all trusts in our area with one in 20 of them attacked in the year to April 2007 – 133 violent incidents.

It was also the sixth worst primary care trust in the country

Managers blame the rise on the trust taking on older people with mental health problems in Portsmouth when primary care trusts were reconfigured in September 2006.

Neighbouring Hampshire Primary Care Trust – the largest in the country with no mental health responsibilities – recorded just 47 assaults.

Facilities manager Sue Robson, who handles security management for Portsmouth Primary Care Trust, said: 'Health staff are more likely to be attacked than people in some other professions because they deal with complex people and situations. We took over the running of older people's mental health in 2006 which has led to a rise, and we have got better reporting methods.

'Staff identified most at risk such as lone workers are given an ID badge which they can press the back of for help.

'Their conversation will be listened to in a monitoring station and the police can be called in. We give conflict resolution training.'

Ellen McGill, secretary of the Portsmouth branch of union Unison, said: 'A lot of the time violence is drug or alcohol-related or involves people with mental health problems. Some people say they don't know what they're doing .

'In some ways I agree, but I don't agree with people who target staff because they know it's going to be difficult to prosecute them.

'Trusts are acknowledging the problem but they are not doing enough.

'More preventative work should be done.'

Paramedic and Hampshire division spokesman for the Association of Ambulance Personnel Simon Surplice said: 'NHS workers tend to come across people who are stressed, frightened and often in pain, which is a bad enough combination without adding alcohol or drugs into the mix.

'We are seen as an easy target.