The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The Practice supports the NHS's 'Zero Tolerance' campaign for Health Service Staff.

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 has to 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.

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 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.

GP practice staff are increasingly facing abuse from patients posting on social media either directly on our social media channels, or on public groups/community forums/feeds.

We are also seeing increasing levels of inaccurate and harmful information being circulated online, and in these public forums/groups Practices cannot publicly refute or explain the issue due to patient confidentiality.

In general, where a patient’s conduct is regarded as unacceptable face-to-face or over the phone, it will also be considered as unacceptable online.

Where behaviour is deemed inappropriate or unacceptable, using the NHS Zero Tolerance policy, we would either send the patient an official warning letter, or in some circumstances, such as severe or recurrent poor behaviour, immediate removal from the Practice list.

If there are any issues you need to address, we really want to understand, learn, and resolve them - please do let us know - please ring, email or write to us!