The ambulance service whose paramedics were left a note complaining their vehicle was blocking a driveway as they battled to save a man’s life has repeatedly been the target of similar abuse, it has emerged.

Officials have warned about the frequency of attacks against ambulance workers after the incident, which took place in the Small Heath area of Birmingham last Friday.

“You may be saving lives, but don’t park your van in a stupid place and block my drive,” the note left under the ambulance’s windscreen wiper read. The patient later died in hospital, the Heart of England NHS trust confirmed.

West Midlands ambulance service said the next day, another of its crews was performing chest compressions on a man who had suffered a cardiac arrest when someone banged on the side of the vehicle and demanded they move it.

A spokesman for the service said its crew had displayed remarkable restraint to respond civilly. It also pointed to an incident in April, in which another note was left on one of its ambulances that had responded to an emergency call. It read: “Thanks for blocking my driveway,” and was signed “No 49,” a spokesman said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A note left on an ambulance in the West Midlands in April. Photograph: West Midlands ambulance service

A video emerged on social media at the weekend of a man shouting abuse at ambulance workers who were trying to help someone in Runcorn, Cheshire. The North West ambulance service said it had recorded 413 incidents of physical abuse against its staff in 2016 – more than one a day.

Play Video 0:47 Man shouts abuse at ambulance workers in Cheshire - video

The West Midlands ambulance service said it experienced one incident of abuse against its staff a day on average. While it was relatively uncommon for notes to be left on ambulances, the spokesman described the other forms of abuse paramedics faced regularly.

“Clearly, there are some patients on drugs or alcohol who are quite abusive. Some have mental health issues and aren’t aware what they are doing and can be quite abusive. Then you get the likes of people being assaulted and so on.”

John Hagans, a nurse consultant at Livingstone House, the drug dependency centre where the patient was staying when he fell ill on Friday, said: “Words fail me.” He said the person who wrote the note “deserves to be shamed”, adding: “If [they] had had any idea of what was going on inside, they would not have dared.”

Hagans told the Daily Mail: “In that situation, no ambulance crew should have to worry about annoying others because of parking. It’s ridiculous. I feel so sorry for the man’s family, knowing that the note was placed on the ambulance that tried to save their son. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

According to the Daily Mirror, Hagans said the grief felt by the family of the man who died had been made much worse by the note. “They are absolutely horrified. They said it’s hard enough as it is, with the loss. The man’s father said to me that it has just made it 50 times worse. The man had been clean for three months before he collapsed.”

The note came to light after one of the paramedics, Tasha Starkey, shared a picture of it online.

Tasha Starkey (@WMASTStarkey) Crew alerted an extremely poorly patient to hospital... minimal on scene time, arrived at hospital to find this note... this patient was TIME-CRITCAL. 😡😡😡 @OFFICIALWMAS pic.twitter.com/uGGAC2TUpI

The trust’s spokesman said it was not likely to pursue the person who left the note. “I don’t think there is actually an offence committed. The reason we wanted to put it out was to show some of the things our staff have to put up with, which we think is pretty unreasonable.

“They are trying to do a difficult job at the best of times and to find something like that is disappointing. It does appear that people think it is OK and it is not.”

The trust has asked the attorney general to look again at a suspended sentence given to a man who was convicted of assaulting two of its staff, saying it was unduly lenient.

Adam George James was given 14 months suspended for two years, as well as being told to serve 150 hours community service and pay a victim surcharge to the courts of £140, for the assaults on ambulance staff who were trying to help him.

The trust wrote to Jeremy Wright nearly two weeks ago to ask for the sentence to be reviewed. Amy Holtom, a paramedic who suffered a broken wrist in the attack, said: “I think this is appalling and shows how little the courts think of us. Anyone else would have been looking at time in jail, but yet again ambulance staff have been let down by the legal system.”