The Practice staff shall always show due respect and courtesy when dealing with patients and their representatives. We respectfully request that patients and their representatives do the same when dealing with members of the practice team.

The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. 

No form of aggression (whether verbal or physical in nature) will be tolerated - any instances of such behaviour on the practice premises may result in the perpetrator being reported to the Police and removed from the practice’s List of Registered Patients.

Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will 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 the circumstances leading to it.

ILFORD MEDICAL CENTRE supports the Zero Tolerance to Abuse in the NHS.

The organisation believes that any act of violence, aggression or intimidation, verbal or physical, against any member of its staff is unacceptable, whether from patients, visitors, other staff, or members of the general public. As such the Practice is committed to introducing measures to reduce this risk and to putting procedures in place to enable all staff to appropriately deal with a violent situation should it arise.

For the purposes of this policy, an act of violence is defined as any incident in which an employee is abused, threatened or assaulted by another individual in circumstances relating to his/her employment, whether or not it results in a physical injury or/and emotional trauma.

Zero Tolerance:

• Verbal or physical abusive behaviour towards staff is not acceptable under any circumstances. The practice will not tolerate unacceptable behaviour, eg. patient swearing at staff, shouting or being aggressive, bullying or racist and demanding.
• Attempted or actual, aggressive threatening physical actions towards any member of staff or use of aggressive threatening or abusive language (including raising up to voice, swearing and cursing, shouting) which threatens and intimidates staff will be reported to the police. The offender will be removed from the premises by the police. The patient will be removed from the practice list and PCSE will be notified so they can inform the patient that they must register elsewhere.
• Persistent and unrealistic demands that cause stress to its staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot.
• All abusive behaviour will be reported to the practice manager who will keep a log of incidents.
• All situations as stated above of violence, threatening and abusive behaviour, we will 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 the circumstances leading to it.

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 the last resort in an impaired patient 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 e.g. when the police are involved.

Removing other members of the household

In rare cases, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate the responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative 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 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 doctors or their staff at risk

The practice will not tolerate any such unacceptable behaviour and therefore has the right to remove patients’ from the list with immediate effect to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons in the premises