GBH on the NHS

Incident at Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham. The attacker was a 55 year-old woman who had been admitted in a very drunken state.

Every day in A&E departments across the country, you'll find bruised, battered and beaten individuals but these people aren't patients, they are the staff attempting to treat them.

An estimated 75,000 NHS workers were victims of violent assaults by patients last year - that's one every seven minutes.

Panorama's Shelley Jofre has been on the frontline of NHS care in two of the country's busiest hospitals in Birmingham and Edinburgh. What she discovered is truly shocking, and testimony to those who continue putting their lives at risk to care for others.

Read Panorama reporter Shelley Jofre's story

Incident at Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh lasting nearly four hours involving clinical staff, hospital security and police officers wearing riot squad gear

The images captured on CCTV, and shown for the first time on television include:

A doctor being attacked by a 55 year-old woman

An assault on a security guard by a patient who had previously punched a doctor

A patient who bites another patient before attempting to assault other patients and staff

A gang fight that continues inside the hospital's X-ray unit

A four-hour long incident that involves staff, security, police and then riot squad officers as they contain a mentally ill patient.

With the government and NHS management committed to a Zero Tolerance policy, Panorama assesses whether the balance is right - between the duty to care and the duty to provide a safe working environment. And we go in search of answers from those who have been convicted of assaulting staff. What explanation can they offer to justify their actions?

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the numerous NHS members, from across the range of the caring professions and from all over the country, who spent time with us in the production of this film.

GBH on the NHS will be aired on BBC One and on this site on Monday 26 February at 2030.