NURSES want the NHS to give them body cameras to deter and record violence against them.

The calls come after a rise in assaults on NHS staff in East Lancashire and nationally.

It prompted nurses at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress on Monday to call for body cameras to combat the increasing levels of violence in A&E and on hospital wards.

But critics of the move said cameras would erode patient trust and invade their privacy.

Figures show there were 222 assaults on East Lancashire Hospitals Trust (ELHT) staff in 2016/17, an increase of 19.35 per cent from 186 in 2015/16.

The figure for Lancashire Care was 1,711 last year, compared to 1,651 the previous year.

North West Ambulance Service recorded 418 attacks on its staff in 2016/17, 25 more than the 393 in 2015/16.

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust saw the biggest rise at 62 per cent, with 365 assaults on NHS staff in 2016/17 compared to 137 in 2015/16.

The data, from 181 of the NHS’s 244 hospital trusts, was obtained by the Health Service Journal on behalf of the union Unison under the Freedom of Information Act.

Nationally, there were 56,435 physical assaults on NHS staff in 2016/17, up 9.7 per cent from 51,447 the year before.

RCN North West regional director Estephanie Dunn said that use of body cameras to protect nurses raised some ‘serious ethical issues’ for nursing.

She said: “It is a sad day that the use of body cameras to protect nurses was debated at RCN Congress and it was clear that their use raises some serious ethical issues for nursing.

“We would like to see further pilots across the UK to build up a good body of evidence.

“Concerns over privacy and confidentiality, and the impact on the vital relationship between nurse and patient must be effectively addressed before any wider roll-out of body cameras is considered.”

Chris Pearson, director of nursing for ELHT, said that while its security staff wear the body camera equipment, the trust had no plans for this to be rolled out to nursing staff.

She added: “It is important to maintain trust, privacy and dignity with our patients, which would no doubt be compromised with such equipment.”

A spokesman from Lancashire Care said: “The trust does not have any plans to introduce body worn cameras for nurses on our wards, however, we do take violence extremely seriously and work is ongoing to ensure our services are as safe as possible for our employees.”