IT amazes us that health authorities and the health and safety executive are still tiptoeing around the issue of hospital violence.

In our story today we report on the latest tentative moves to deal with abuse and violence in the Royal Gwent Hospital and Nevill Hall.

For the past few years we have been banging on about this issue with little success.

The fact is that drunks and other aggressive types can threaten hospital staff and get away with it.

Rather than tackle the issue head-on with a zero tolerance policy the authorities seem content to make staff put up with intimidation and minor violence as an everyday part of their jobs.

Can you imagine what would happen if drunks or other unpleasant people wandered into a police station and started threatening staff?

They would be forcibly restrained and locked up in an instant. The next morning they would be suitably charged.

Yet we allow our nurses and doctors to face aggression and the risk of violence for reasons that seem inexplicable to us.

The Assembly and health authorities should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this abuse to continue unchecked when they should be putting the safety of staff and well behaved patients above all else.