We take very seriously any threatening, abusive, or violent behaviour against any of our staff or other patients.
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 our services, mutual respect between our staff and patients has to be in place. All of our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. We would respectfully remind patients that very often staff may be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes very challenging tasks and situations, all at the same time. Not all of these may be obvious to the casual observer, so please try to be patient with us.
Our staff do 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 by asking you to stop behaving in a particular way. However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and should you ignore this warning, we will have no hesitation in taking steps toward removing you from our practice list and where appropriate, reporting you to the police.
In order 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 bad 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 certainly 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 other patients
- Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently or by deceit.
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 a severely compromised 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 would be the immediate removal of a patient on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police will also be involved.
Removing other members of the household
In very rare cases, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may also be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family/ 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 could visit, 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 on our list may put our staff at risk.
