The Practices support 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 mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place.
The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) defines work-related violence as:
“Any incident, in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work”.
Everyone at Orwell and St Serf’s Medical practices aims to be polite, helpful and sensitive to patient needs and circumstances, and they should be able to work without fear of violence, abuse or harassment. Very often, staff are confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. The staff understands that ill patients do not always act reasonably and consider this when to dealing with patients.
Our Zero-tolerance policy aims to protect staff from abuse and/or unacceptable conduct whether physical, verbal or online via social media/social networking platforms.
Examples of conduct we consider to be unacceptable:
- Verbal abuse including unacceptable language, shouting, raising voices, swearing at or insulting staff.
- Actual or threatened physical violence including physical assault (whether or not it results in injury), pushing or shoving or being intentionally struck with bodily fluids or excrement.
- Unreasonable and/or offensive remarks or behaviour, rude gestures and innuendoes.
- Any form of abuse or discrimination under the Equality Act 2010; to include, but not limited to: homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, ageism or harassment or abuse based on disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief
- Seeking to obtain drugs and/or medical services fraudulently.
- Causing deliberate damage to property belonging to a member of staff.
- Open slander on social media/social Networking platforms.
Any such unacceptable conduct may result in patients being removed from our practice list and Police Scotland assistance being requested. Notes will also be added to a patient’s record detailing the circumstances of the incident.
Removal from the Practice List
Removal 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 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.
Removing other members of the household
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 in 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 when a removed patient has been violent or displayed threatening behaviour.