Salisbury District Hospital treating two assault victims every week

Figures from the NHS show the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust saw 100 patients in 2019-20, who had been admitted to hospital after being assaulted.

That's an average of almost two a week.

The numbers are however rounded up to the nearest five and a person is also counted each time they're seen by a doctor - so some could have been admitted more than once.

Across England, there were 28,905 assault admissions recorded at hospitals.

There's no breakdown of the types of incidents by local hospital trusts, but nationally, assault by bodily force was the most common reason - being recorded in 58% of cases.

This was followed by knife attacks (16%) and assaults with a blunt object (7%).

Differences between the types of assault suffered by male and female patients has also been revealed.

One in six female victims in England had suffered physical and sexual abuse, mental cruelty or torture - that's a rise of 31% compared to 2015-16.

Cases of sexual assault among women and girls went up by 89% over the same period.

CHARITIES RESPOND TO FIGURES

Patrick Green, CEO of anti-knife charity the Ben Kinsella Trust, said that despite a drop in knife-related injuries there's still a 'long way to go before we can start to think that we are turning the tide on knife crime':

"No child is born carrying a knife. It is a learned behaviour. We have to do more to educate young people about the dangers of knife crime to help them to make positive choices, and not end up in hospital wards or police cells."

The charity Stand Against Violence however said the figures show knives are not as much of a problem as fists, despite 'relentless emphasis and media storms' on knife crime.

CEO Adam Fouracre said:

"We need to ensure our efforts to tackle violence focus on tackling violence holistically and not honing in on weapons."