The efforts by West Yorkshire police to (as they put it) "increase visibility" around Bradford Royal Infirmary are a very welcome development. Community support officers are now to be seen in the wards, corridors and waiting areas in a bid to crack down on the sort of hospital violence highlighted by the Telegraph & Argus's End the Abuse campaign, which was launched with the aim of putting a stop to the disturbing number of attacks on staff.

With the first stage of a planned expansion of crime-fighting operations at the hospital now under way it is good to learn that plans are already being made for phase 2: the setting up of a permanent police office in the accident and emergency department with computers linked to the police database so that officers can question and process suspects on site.

It was inconceivable, some years ago, that any hospital should need to introduce measures of this sort or that high-profile uniformed patrols should be deemed necessary to act as a deterrent to violence. But times have changed. There are a growing number of people who, for various and seldom rational reasons, regard those whose job is to help and heal the sick as fair targets.

Hospital staff need to be protected from them. And so, too, do the law-abiding patients who might already be anxious about whatever it is that has caused them to have to go to hospital. The last thing they need is to witness, or be involved in, an act of violence against a member of staff.