Our Zero Tolerance Policy

As an employer, the practice has a duty to care for the health and safety of its staff.  The practice also has a legal responsibility to provide a safe and secure working environment for its staff.  Therefore, the practice is committed to do everything possible to protect staff, patients and visitors from unacceptable behaviour, and has 'zero tolerance' of any incident that causes hurt, alarm, damage or distress. 

Our practice staff are here to help you; our aim is to be as polite and helpful as possible to all patients. Our 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.

If you consider that you have been treated unfairly or inappropriately, please ask the reception staff to contact our Practice Manager who will be happy to address your concerns. 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.

All patients are expected to behave in an acceptable manner and violent or abusive behaviour towards staff or patients may result in removal from our practice list or even criminal proceedings. The practice follows the NHS guidance concerning Zero Tolerance.

Examples of unacceptable standards of behaviour:

• Physical violence or aggression
• Verbal abuse or aggression
• Racial abuse or sexual harassment
• Offensive or threatening behaviour
• Causing damage to or stealing from the practice premises
• Abusing alcohol or drugs on the practice premises
• Obtaining drugs or medical services fraudulently

Furthermore, the practice will not hesitate to take legal action whenever it is appropriate to do so.  The whole NHS, including GP surgeries and especially locally, is working under unprecedented levels of patient demand and expectation, and we appreciate that this can lead to increased levels of patient distress.  However, we hope that patients will agree that our staff are our most valuable asset, and that verbal abuse or aggression is unacceptable.

The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. We value and respect good patient-doctor relationships based on mutual respect and trust. When trust has irretrievably broken down, the practice will consider all factors before removing a patient from their list, and communicate to them that it is in the patient’s best interest that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is in the case of immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

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 to ensure the safety of practice staff.
The prospect of visiting patients that is the residence of a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice, or the risk of being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is more likely where the removed patient has been violent or displayed threatening behaviour, and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.

Thank you very much in anticipation of your understanding.