Nurses working in Glasgow’s hospitals raised the alarm about staff shortages 962 times last year, figures show.

Official documents seen by the Evening Times also show that hospital staff reported 1139 incidents of violence and aggression in 2015.

Three calls were made every day to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s health and safety monitoring system about staff shortages, athough it was down 8 per cent on the previous year, when there were 1043 incidents reported.

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Reports by staff of violence and aggression in hospitals also dropped by 36 per cent, down from 1782 to 1139 - although this was the highest category of incidents.

Incidents of abuse across the workforce overall also decreased by 20 per cent from 11040 to 8842.

The figures were released in the board’s annual health and safety forum and show a general decrease in all adverse incidents towards staff.

Union leaders welcomed the drop in incidents but warned that NHSstaff were continuing to be put at risk of abuse, injury and damage to their health on a daily basis.

They also warned that the decrease suggests some staff may have “given up” reporting incidents because they fear that no action will be taken.

Local Unison Health and Safety Lead Tommy McWilliams said: “I am pleased that the board continues to produce and analyse the findings of this annual report.

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“Whilst we should welcome some of the downward trend in the number of incidents being reported, there is a pressing need to understand whether that is because staff are working is a safer environment; whether staff have given up reporting incidents due to a lack of confidence that things get fixed or whether short staffing/pressure or work and lack of time are forcing staff to adopt a more risk accepting approach to their health and safety.”

Reports of adverse incidents towards staff working in community care have also decreased by 44 per cent, from 5777 to 3244.

Unison Branch Secretary Cathy Miller said, “These statistics are helpful because they highlight that across NHSGGC Unison members are at risk of abuse, injury and damage to their health on a daily basis.

“It is incredible that in one area alone short staffing have resulted in almost 3 reports every day, via the Health and Safety system.

“This is a direct result of the NHSGGC continued attempts to save money and it is unacceptable that they do so by putting Unison members and patients at risk.”

A spokeswoman for NHSGGC said: “Our priority is to ensure that we keep patients safe and have the required staff to provide quality care.

To this end the Board’s Health and Safety Forum, which includes staff side partnership, agreed to include a staffing category to the national datix system.

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We actively encourage staff to log any concerns on datix which is routinely monitored and staffing shortage issues resolved.

We constantly monitor staffing levels on wards as part of the national workforce tool to ensure they are appropriate to meet clinical care needs.

Every day our hospitals have safety huddles, usually three times a day, and part of this process is to ensure we have the right number of staff to deliver the care needed by our patients."