Workers at one of Oxfordshire's smallest NHS trusts are more at risk of being assaulted than their colleagues at the county's hospitals.

Figures released today show that 368 staff at the Ridgeway Partnership, formerly the Oxfordshire Learning Disability Trust, were physically attacked during 2006/7. The trust's record worked out at 328 assaults per 1,000 workers, compared to 46.3 per 1,000 at Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Healthcare Trust, and 12.6 per 1,000 at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust - which runs the county's two casualty units.

Ridgeway Partnership nursing director John Turnball said because of the people staff cared for, it was not unusual for learning disability trusts to record a higher number of assaults.

He said: "We record anything from a slap, a kick and a scratch, and it's not the typical assault like those seen in casualty units where someone lays into a nurse with a bottle. We also have a small proportion of people with learning disabilities who have long histories of behaving in this sort of way to get things or to express themselves, which is why they get referred to trusts like ours. But not all people with learning difficulties are violent. It's a very small minority with these problems."