He said aggression against nurses and doctors was "simply unacceptable" and police have been told to get tough with perpetrators.

The first minister was speaking during a tour of the accident and emergency unit at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

The public service union Unison welcomed his comments and urged the Scottish Executive to adopt the union's six-point plan to reduce the number of attacks.

Mr McConnell said trouble would be dealt with

Mr McConnell said that too often NHS staff and other emergency service workers were attacked by the people they were trying to help.

He said the executive would ensure that patients disrupting the work of doctors and nurses were quickly removed from a hospital.

He also said attacks on hospital staff may be considered in the same way as those on police officers.

Jim Devine, Unison's Scottish organiser for health, said attacks on health workers must stop.

'Action plan'

He said: "Surveys are still showing an increase in assaults on NHS staff.

"A recent survey showed that 40% of nurses had been assaulted on duty by a patient or patient's relative in the past three years.

"However, 60% of those received no support whatsoever.

"Whilst we welcome the zero tolerance plan to be adopted by Lothian University Hospitals Trust, the lack of support and follow up in other areas is quite frankly unacceptable.

"We welcome the first minister's involvement but we would urge the government to adopt our action plan across the country as a step forward in tackling violence in our hospitals."

Unison's action plan includes:

• Scotland's health minister and NHS trade unions jointly issuing a Staff Charter, reminding the public that it is not part of an NHS worker's job to be physically or verbally abused at work

• the standardisation throughout Scotland of the definition, recording and follow up of violent and potentially violent incidents, including verbal abuse, for all NHS staff

• an agreed training course on the management of violent or potentially violent incidents for all NHS staff

• the introduction of a 'yellow and red card' warning system to members of the public who consistently abuse NHS staff

• relatives who physically abuse NHS staff must be automatically charged and prosecuted by the procurator fiscal

• every NHS worker in Scotland has a duty of care to their colleagues, to use the reporting system for every incident, and accept and expect that zero tolerance is the only option.