The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of our team or one of the doctors 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 teams have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the practice team and patients must be in place. Our team aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often team members could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. Our team understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.
However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.
In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients we would like to ask all patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:
- Using bad language or swearing at members of the practice team
- Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving.
- Verbal abuse towards team members in any form including verbal insults.
- 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 given when they cannot.
- Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, team members or patients
- Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently
We ask you to always treat your GPs and our team courteously.
Removal from the practice list
A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is 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 to this is immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.
Removing other members of the household
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 visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or 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 team at risk.
