NEW powers to help hospitals tackle abusive and violent patients are to be unveiled next week.

The Department of Health has revealed it will be announcing plans for a consultation on new measures to combat antisocial behaviour within the National Health Service.

It will coincide with the release of new figures highlighting the number of violent incidents at hospitals across the country.

York Hospital chiefs said they would welcome any new legislation or guidance to bolster their zero tolerance policy against verbal and physical aggression towards staff.

Mike Proctor, the hospital's director of nursing, expects York to rank in the middle of the league showing violent incidents on wards, but said not all hospitals reported such incidents as rigorously as York.

"I am not aware of any significant violent incident in the past month. We ensure we have a zero tolerance policy for people who are either verbally or physically aggressive to members of staff. We have prosecuted people and been involved in prosecuting people who have been guilty of these things in hospital.

"York isn't a particular hotspot for having a violent A&E department, but we want to keep it at the forefront of people's minds.

"The main danger in A&E is that staff begin to tolerate it. When the drunks are in on a Friday night, staff start to accept it as part of their job. We work really hard with staff in A&E so they know they shouldn't tolerate that.

"If there's further legislation and guidance, we would welcome that.

"We have a very good working relationship with the police. If we phone them, they attend very promptly and are very helpful to our staff. It may be useful for the police to have greater powers."

A national survey from the Royal College Of Nursing (RCN) recently revealed rising levels of violence directed at members of the profession.

Four in ten and nearly 80 per cent of accident and emergency nurses reported having been harassed or assaulted by patients or patients' relatives in the 12 months until March, up by six per cent since 2000.

Last May, The Press revealed incidents of violence and intimidation reported by hospital workers rose from 11 in 2002, to 52 in 2004.

Alison Sayers, who chairs the RCN's York branch and works at York Hospital's A&E department, said violence towards staff had risen slightly since 2000, but verbal abuse had definitely increased.

She said most of the incidents throughout the hospital usually related to alcohol or waiting times.