"Be patient if you still want to be one".

That is the message being driven home in the latest phase of the Telegraph & Argus End The Abuse campaign to protect to health workers from violent or abusive patients.

A poster depicting a health centre receptionist being threatened by a patient will remind patients that healthcare organisations have a zero tolerance policy.

The posters are being displayed in GPs' surgeries and health centres across the district and have been produced by the T&A.

This is the second stage of the campaign which was launched more than a year ago after figures showed more than 400 staff at Bradford's hospitals had suffered violence or intimidation by patients or their families in the six months to October 2004.

Incidents of aggression against staff had doubled in six years.

Hard-hitting posters were posted in the district's hospitals and now the campaign is being extended to primary care health facilities, where frontline staff are also regularly subjected to verbal abuse Dr Barbara Hakin, chief executive of Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust, received the posters on behalf of all the district's primary care trusts during a visit to Horton Bank Top Surgery in Clayton Heights. She praised the campaign which she said was making a difference to the working lives of NHS staff.

She said: "It is clear that the campaign, which started off focusing on hospitals, has really started to make a difference.

"The NHS has some amazing staff who are committed to do their best and do not deserve being subjected to threatening or unpleasant behaviour.

"Anything that raises this zero tolerance message means it is less likely to happen. Even though it is only a small minority of patients, it is very distressing for receptionists in primary care, and it is the receptionists who bear the brunt of this, when a patient cannot get what they want.

"Incidents of physical violence are rare but verbal abuse or threatening behaviour is becoming increasingly common and it is that we need to raise awareness of."

Cath Crabbe is practice manager at Horton Bank Top Surgery, which has 8,000 patients and five GPs. She welcomed the campaign, and said physical violence was extremely rare but verbal abuse did happen - and it was not acceptable.

"Our staff show respect to patients and we expect the same back, " she said.

T&A editor Perry Austin-Clarke said: "The End The Abuse campaign has been successful in highlighting the physical and verbal abuse suffered by many staff in hospitals.

"But those who work in GPs' surgeries and health centres are also in the front line and can often be faced with language and behaviour which goes far beyond rudeness and can be genuinely frightening.

"We hope by taking the End The Abuse campaign into these areas we can help to highlight how unacceptable this behaviour is and encourage everyone to treat NHS staff wherever they work with the decency and respect they deserve."