Newhall Surgery takes it very seriously if any member of staff, in whatever capacity, is treated in an abusive or violent way.
Newhall Surgery 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 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. We 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 unwell 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, and unnecessarily persistent or unrealistic service demands that cause disruption, will not be tolerated and may result in removal 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 staff or other patients
- Verbal, non-verbal and environmental slights, snubs and insults which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages.
- Written abuse, unfounded accusations towards the staff and making false statements
- Fictitious complaints or allegations
- Racial or other abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated
- Behaviours that target a person based on their protected characteristic or belonging to a marginalised group. These can be intentional and unintentional and are based on biases (either conscious and unconscious).
- Unnecessarily persistent and 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 Newhall Surgery 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.
Removal from the practice list
A good patient/GP 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, eg when the Police are called.
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 GPs or their staff at risk.