The national action plan should not end up gathering dust on a shelf like its predecessor the Skelmersdale report, Community Care editor in chief, Terry Philpot, urged this week.

Community Care has been instrumental in highlighting the dangers faced by social care staff at work and in 1999 launched a "No Fear" campaign to highlight the dangers faced by social care staff.

Philpot, who has been a key member of the 18-strong national task force, said: "What we wanted to do and have done is to produce a report and materials aimed at both practitioners and managers which would set in train a programme of development.

"Everyone now knows that violence to social care staff is a persistent, major and ignored problem. We hope that our efforts will ensure that the means of addressing it are as firmly embedded in the work and culture of social care as are the means of addressing the many other problems with which social care deals.

"An important mark of the seriousness of intent would be for the government to accept that this is something which should be the subject of performance indicators."