A MAN who repeatedly subjected NHS staff to verbal and physical abuse faces being banned from every hospital and doctor’s surgery in the country in a crackdown on violence in the health service.

Norman Hutchins, 53, is to appear at York Magistrates’ Court this morning, when he is expected to become the first person in Britain to be placed under an antisocial behaviour order banning him from entering or calling all NHS premises and private clinics.

The application marks a new front in the campaign to target violent offenders, who will now face rapid prosecution and the possibility of a national ban under a “three strikes and you’re out” policy being introduced by health chiefs.

The strategy, designed to stem the rising number of violent assaults on NHS staff, will see any patient who acts aggressively immediately cautioned. Those who commit physical violence will be prosecuted, while serial offenders will be subject to a banning application.

Hutchins was targeted by NHS security services after it emerged that he had been reported by medical staff for abusive behaviour more than 40 times in the past five months. Incidents included drawing a knife on hospital workers, repeated requests for surgical masks, touching nurses and unlawfully entering an operating theatre.

Despite being a repeat offender, Hutchins, who is unemployed and lives in York, had avoided breaking civil injunctions brought against him by several hospitals by moving between health trusts around the country. He is known to have had contact with more than a dozen NHS trusts in recent months, as far afield as Devon and Dundee.

Jim Gee, chief executive of NHS Security Management Services, said that the application for a national ban signalled a zero-tolerance attitude to violence in the health service.

“It is very sad that this sort of thing is necessary, but with rights to free healthcare which we have in this country come responsibilities. The vast majority of patients and members of the public want to protect the NHS and patient care,” Mr Gee said. “Unfortunately there is a minority who do not respect the NHS and it is our job to prevent assaults and violence against staff.

“The NHS really is a privilege for people and, if you abuse that privilege, then it will be taken away.”

More than 116,000 incidents of physical aggression or verbal abuse against NHS workers were reported last year in England and Wales, up 8,000 on 2002. But only 50 of the cases resulted in prosecutions, mainly due to legal loopholes in the definition of physical and verbal abuse.

Mr Gee said that a NHS legal protection unit, which was set up in December, would see a dramatic rise in the number of successful criminal prosecutions and civil cases in 2004. Every NHS trust will also get a security management specialist within the next year.

“We now have legally based definitions of what constitutes physical assault and verbal abuse,” he said. “Before, there was a lack of clarity, which was making it difficult to pursue prosecutions. But with this framework now in place, we can apply sanctions.”

As well as providing distinct categories of offences, the framework would also allow security staff to identify the worst repeat offenders quickly, Mr Gee said. Though the Hutchins case was extreme, the security chief said that he would not be the only person to be subject to a banning order. “We can now pick up patterns of repeat offending across local boundaries and pick up those people who represent a serious threat to staff,” he said.

If Hutchins has a genuine need of healthcare, he will be required to get written permission or must attend the NHS in accordance with strict instructions on his behaviour. Should he break those conditions, he would face up to five years in prison.

The order is being applied for on behalf of the NHS by York County Council, the local authority where the majority of Hutchins’s alleged offences have occurred.

Hutchins, who lives by himself, has previously served a six-month jail term for deception after duping hospitals into giving him surgical gloves and masks. He is due to be sentenced at York Crown Court next week on further counts of harassment and obtaining property by deception.

Hutchins is known to have a particular fascination with medical items of clothing, which he has tried to obtain by feigning illness or pretending to need them for amateur plays, charity fun runs and animal testing.

Each time he has been challenged by staff he is said to have become verbally abusive, and on several occasions is alleged to have physically assaulted staff.

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