A DISTRICT nurse was attacked by three drunken men as she left a block of flats in Gravesham Court at Gravesend. They knocked her to the ground and then one of them fell on top of her.

The nurse, a member of a district team serving Gravesend, eventually managed to picked herself up and raise the alarm. When the incident took place she had just left a patient in the multi-storey council block.

The nurse was badly shaken and she is unlikely to return to work for some days. Prof Ami David, head of nursing at the Primary Care Trust, said: "Everyone at the trust has been shaken by this. How can you prevent it if people behave like this? District nurses are very vulnerable to this sort of thing."

She said the trust was now looking into the possibility of providing its 400 nurses with mobile phones. "Most community trusts are beginning to provide them," she admitted.

"It doesn't prevent you from being attacked, but it does give you a sense of security."

The staff nurse had just left a patient in the multi-storey council block when the three men attacked her.

Council officials and police are investigating whether the attackers were residents of the flats.