Violent patients / Zero Tolerance

We all have bad days, and when we feel ill we may feel 'down' and a little more irritable than normal. All our staff are here to help you. Reception staff are following procedures that help the practice to function efficiently. Staff have the right to work in a safe and secure environment and we, as employers, have the legal responsibility to provide that safe and secure environment.

The GPs have the right to remove from their list with immediate effect any patient who behaves in the above manner. 

In this situation we are obliged to notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient's medical records the fact of the removal and circumstances leading to it. The Health Authority is then responsible for providing further medical care for such patients.

It is our aim to offer you the highest standard of clinical care with a personal touch. We are committed to providing a preventive healthcare approach in line with current healthcare policy.

Please read our Zero Tolerance Policy

Removal of Patients from the Practice List

The practice does not discriminate against patients on the grounds of age, sex, sexual orientation, race, colour, and religious belief.  A good patient doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of a patient from the practice list will continue to be an exceptional and rare event and a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the mutual interest of both the patient and the surgery that the patient should find a more suitable practice that will suit their needs.

There is public concern that patients may be removed from the practice list simply for making a complaint. This is not true, the practice believes that any complaint made in a reasonable and constructive manner, can help the practice to improve services to patients. On the rare occasion that a patient is perceived to be behaving inappropriately, the practice may adopt the in-house complaints procedure to discuss any such instances and decide the best course of action. This will give the patient an early notification of a possible problem in their relationship with their doctor along with an opportunity to discuss ways of preventing further difficulties.

The practice believes, however, that complaints that take the form of a scurrilous personal attack on members of the practice or contain allegations which are clearly unfounded, indicate a serious breakdown in the patient-doctor relationship. It is the breakdown of the relationship, rather than a complaint per se which will form the basis of any decision to remove a patient from the list; it may then be in the patient's best interest to seek care at another practice.