The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.
The Practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often, staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes complex tasks and situations simultaneously. The staff understand that ill patients do not always act reasonably and will consider this when dealing with a misunderstanding or complaint.
However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated. It may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.
For the practice to maintain good relations with its patients, the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:
- Using foul language or swearing at practice staff.
- Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving.
- Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form, including verbally insulting the staff.
- Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice.
- Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible, and explanations are given when they cannot.
- Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients.
- Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently.
We ask you always to treat your GPs and their staff courteously.
A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. Removing patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception is immediate removal on the grounds of violence, e.g. when the Police are involved.
In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home, it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of seeing patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice following removal for unacceptable behaviour resides or is being regularly confronted by the removed patient may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour, and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.