South Essex GPs are being asked to volunteer to treat violent patients who have been barred from other surgeries.

Last year 40 patients were removed immediately from doctors' lists in south Essex for violent or threatening behaviour, 35 coming from Southend.

The Department of Health is concerned about the rising tide of frightening aggression against vulnerable family doctors and practice staff and has promised a policy of "zero tolerance" to make the health service a safer place to work.

But Chris Franklin, health improvement manager for Brentwood and Billericay and Wickford primary care groups, said that even violent patients still had the right to general medical services.

Now each of the south Essex primary care groups and one primary care trust are being asked to provide volunteers to see struck-off patients in secure premises, with extra protective measures such as panic buttons, possibly linked directly to police stations.

Healthcall, the out-of-hours doctor service has already indicated it may offer its Chalkwell Lawns premises in Westcliff on an appointment-only basis.

Another suitable venue is being sought in the south-west of the district.

Each PCG/PCT will be asked to fund the scheme by contributing some £5,000 a year and GP volunteers would receive a retainer of £6,000 plus a capitation fee of £750 for each violent patient allocated.

The proposed scheme will be debated at Wednesday's meeting of Billericay and Wickford primary care group. Last year only two of the violent patients came from the area.

But PCG chief executive Owen Richards said: "We have responsibilities to contribute to the bigger picture. We have to recognise that we don't know how these numbers could change.

"The situation could be quite volatile and we could suddenly have a number of violent patients removed from lists in Billericay and Wickford."

The whole idea, he added, was to minimise the number of patients removed from GP lists.

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