A helpline has been set up for victims of bullying at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

Surveys have identified bullying and verbal or physical abuse as a problemwith the main culprits patients' relatives, say NHS bosses.

At a Winchester and Eastleigh NHS Trust meeting, director, Mary Sabben-Clare, said: "The helpline is an enormous step forward, but there is still a lot to do."

The helpline is staffed by the personnel department, but the aim is to train other staff to act as "mentors" with a brief to listen and be supportive.

Mrs Sabben-Clare said: "It is important that staff can go somewhere other than personnel department where they may feel everything is written down and made official."

Of the 2,954 staff surveyed in August, 2638.9%reported incidents of bullyingan increase on 2001.

Over 60% came from patients and their families. However, it was unclear whether bullying was getting worse or whether more people were reporting it.

Personnel director, Vicki Fletcher, said "tirades of abuse" tended to come from visitors rather than patients.

"There is always likely to be under-reporting of this, particularly as regards to patients because people in clinical situations tend to accept it is part of the job whereas we want to encourage people not to think like that."

The board was told awareness sessions on appropriate behaviour were run where individual hospital departments were identified as having a problem.