Zero Tolerance Policy

Our Policy

Oundle Medical Practice takes it very seriously if any member of our team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The 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 the 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. They 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 ill 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, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the surgery list and, in extreme cases, the police being contacted.

For the surgery to maintain good relations with their patients the surgery 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 surgery staff;

• Any physical violence towards any member of the surgery team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving;
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff;
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this surgery;
• Persistent or 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 the surgery premises, staff or patients;
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently.

We ask you to treat all of our staff courteously at all times.

Removal from the Practice List

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 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 e.g. when the police are involved.