OUTSIDE of the police force or a late-night restaurant, we find it difficult to think of a workplace which comes close to exposing its workers to as much abuse as hospital staff suffer.

In nine months, there were 130 cases of abuse against staff dispensing care, comfort and treatment at hospitals in Worcester, Kidderminster and Redditch - 43 of them verbal, 87 physical.

It's little wonder that health officials have told patients that they've had enough.

From now on, an abusive patient will move from "quiet word" to red card in four simple steps, the ultimate sanction being a ban from hospitals for a year and the need to be assessed with police present if they require emergency treatment.

About time, or a step too far?

To be absolutely blunt, to us, three chances seem to be one chance too many before seeing red.

It potentially leaves at least one hospital worker at risk after three others have already been the target for abuse.

We're prompted to wonder what the world's coming to, a question that becomes more of a lament than a statement of shock with every occasion it's asked in this often anti-social day and age.

The ultimate question, it occurs to us, is whether medics will ever feel threatened enough to deny a patient their services. God forbid that it might.

If the rising level of ill-manners, ingratitude or violence ever reached the point where all these sanctions and warnings failed to work, it would be a grim day for us all.