Dutch hospitals have to deal with some 4,500 incidents of serious verbal and physical violence a year, leading to some 200 patients and visitors being banned, the AD reports on Monday.

Health minister Edith Schippers described the findings as ‘unacceptable’ and urged hospital staff to always report attacks to the police.

Most offenders are either drugs users, alcoholics or patients with psychiatric problems, but a number are ‘ordinary’ people with anger issues, the paper said.

AD researchers contacted the country’s 93 hospitals and concluded there are some 12 incidents a day. One in four incidents involved staff being physically attacked.