Longer hours increase risk of violence for GPs.

GPs who work long hours run a greater risk of being verbally abused or physically attacked by a patient.

Australian research, published in the British Journal of General Practice, questioned 216 GPs and found that those who had experienced an attack work more hours each week than those who had not.

The average working week of those who had been physically attacked was found to be 51 hours, 14 hours a week more than the average working week of those who had not.

In terms of verbal abuse the average working week of victims was 39 hours, compared with just 35 hours for those who had never experienced such abuse.

Findings are released as the …