The practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy 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 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. Staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable or rational manner and will endeavour to 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 take note of the 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, insults and accusations towards the staff in any form, either directly to the member of staff or indirectly made about one member of staff to another member of staff.
- Racial abuse and sexual harassment.
- 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 all their staff courteously at all times.
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.