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 in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. 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 violence in any context including actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety, can lead to removal from the list and recorded in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.
In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all of our 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.
We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.
An explanation of the NHS’s “Zero Tolerance” policy
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 broken down, it is in the patient’s best 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.