NHS Policy

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. 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.

Specifically the practice would also like to advise all patients and visitors to the practice of the following:

Abusive Behaviour

We, at Stony Medical Centre, will not tolerate any sort of abuse against our staff or other users of this building. 

Abuse whether it is violent, threatening or verbal, will be dealt with most severely and as such may result in the police being called and the abusive patient being removed from our practice list.

Please be aware that we consider the use of offensive language i.e.: swearing to be Abuse.

Further, if a patient believes she or he has grounds for a concern we will work with that patient through our complaints process however threats of legal action or escalation, where we have not had the opportunity to remedy the complaint, will be considered as Abuse and are likely to result in a patient being removed from our practice list due to a breakdown in the patient/doctor relationship.

Discrimination

After a number of instances where the ethnicity of our staff has been questioned by patients the practice would like to reiterate that we do not tolerate any sort of discrimination against staff or patients. 

Anybody found to be discriminating against any of our staff because of race, gender, sexuality or disability will be treated severely and this is likely to result in the patient being asked to register elsewhere. 

Similarly anybody found to be discriminating against a fellow patient will be dealt with equally severely. 

We trust that this stance will be respected and understood and offer our sincere thanks for your support to the vast majority of tolerant, friendly and lovely patients.