MORE security officers will monitor Central Coast hospital emergency departments as part of a three-month trial to assess additional safeguards.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said Gosford and Wyong hospitals would be among three trial sites testing the effectiveness of additional security measures and surveillance.
"Aggression towards hospital staff is a disturbing and increasing phenomenon worldwide and as a community, we need to do our best to try and address it," he said.
Terrigal MP Adam Crouch said he was glad Central Coast hospitals were chosen for the security trial.
"We had a man who was drunk threaten two nurses with a meat cleaver at Wyong Hospital a few years back and police and security intervened," he said.
The trial would attempt to identify and intervene in any incidents before they escalated. NSW Health would review the trial results, with recommendations from Peter Anderson's final report into hospital security, due in late December.
Across NSW, $19 million has been invested to improve hospital security in EDs, upgrade CCTV systems and improve access controls between public and staff areas.
A further $5 million has provided emergency department staff with duress alarms.
Since 2010, the NSW Health security workforce has increased by 25 per cent to 1246 full time equivalent staff - 13 additional security staff are being brought on for the trial.
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