The Practice staff shall always show due respect and courtesy when dealing with patients and their representatives. We respectfully request that patients and their representatives do the same when dealing with members of the practice team.
The NHS operate a zero-tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect to safeguard practice staff, patients, and other persons.
Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.
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 a mutual respect between all the staff and patients must be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. The staff 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.
No form of aggression (whether verbal or physical in nature) will be tolerated - any instances of such behaviour on the practice premises may result in the perpetrator being reported to the Police and removed from the practice’s List of Registered Patients.
For the Practice to maintain good relations with their 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 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, staff or patients
- Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently
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 on 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 staff at risk.