As an employer, the practice has a duty to care for the health and safety of its staff. The practice also has a legal responsibility to provide a safe and secure working environment for staff. All patients are expected to behave in an acceptable manner and violent or abusive behaviour towards staff or patients may result in removal from our practice list or even criminal proceedings. The practice follows the NHS guidance concerning Zero Tolerance.
The Practice has a policy of “zero tolerance” of verbal and physical violence towards GP’s, staff or other patients.
The practice will request the removal of any patient from the practice list who is aggressive or abusive towards a doctor, member of staff, other patient, or who damages property or acts to undermine trust in the doctor patient relationship
All instances of actual physical abuse on any doctor or member of staff, by a patient or their relatives will be reported to the police as an assault.
We expect all patients to be responsible and avoid attending the surgery under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs.
Any alteration of prescriptions is illegal and will not be tolerated.
If you are unhappy with the quality of service you have the right to register with another practice without notifying us. Similarly, when a patient repeatedly ignores their responsibilities to the Practice, we have the right to remove the patient from our Practice list.
Examples of Unacceptable Standards of Behaviour
– Violence
– Excessive noise eg recurrent loud or intrusive conversation or shouting.
– Threatening or abusive language involving swearing or offence remarks.
– Derogatory racial or sexual remarks.
– Malicious allegations relating to members of staff, other patients or visitors.
– Offensive sexual gestures or behaviours.
– Abusing alcohol or drugs on practice premises.
– Drug dealing on practice premises.
– Wilful damage to practice property.
– Threats or threatening behaviour.
– Theft
– Refusal to leave a consultation or the practice premises when asked
– Unfounded negative comments on social media that may act to undermine patient trust in our team
Our Staff have the right to be treated with dignity and respect at all times.
They should be able to do their jobs without being abused.
Most people respect this.
Anyone found abusing the staff in person or on the telephone will be asked to leave the practice.
This behaviour will NOT be tolerated.
Removal from the List
In exceptional circumstances, a breakdown may occur between a doctor and his patient. If the breakdown is of a serious nature e.g. serious physical or verbal abuse to any member of the practice team, the doctors may feel that the doctor/patient relationship has been compromised. Steps may be taken to have the patient removed from the doctor’s list. Where possible, conciliation would always be the preferred route.
Reasons for removal will be given in writing.
Social Media
The Oakwood Surgery is not responsible for any content posted by visitors to our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or NHS Choices accounts and engagement with such accounts is subject to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy of the respective services.
We encourage our patients, fans and followers to post, comment and interact with other, and expect that remarks will be on-topic and respectful of the rights and opinions of others.
All conversations and posts should be constructive, respectful, and contain language that is appropriate for all groups and ages.
By posting content to any The Oakwood Surgery social media pages, users understand and acknowledge that this information is available to the public and that other participants may use posted information beyond the control of The Oakwood Surgery. Users who do not wish to have information they have made available via these sites used, published, copied and/or reprinted, should not post on The Oakwood Surgery social media pages.
We reserve the right but are not obliged to take action to remove comments that :
– are obscene, indecent, profane, or vulgar
– contain threats or personal attacks of any kind
– contain offensive terms directed to ethnic or racial groups
– are defamatory in any way
– are untrue
– are advertisements, promotions, or commercial content that sells products and services
– are excessively repetitive
– are in breach of UK, European, or other international laws
– are likely to undermine the doctor-patient relationship and / or trust
Comments that do not adhere to the above guidelines will be removed.
In instances of repeat offenses we may take action to block offenders from our social media pages.
Where the offender is a registered patient of The Oakwood Surgery we reserve the right to provide a writing warning to you about your conduct.
Further offenses will be treated as a breakdown in the doctor-patient relationship resulting in removal from our patient list.
Links
Facebook Terms
https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/update?ref=old_policy
Twitter Terms
https://twitter.com/en/tos
YouTube Terms
https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms
NHS Choices
https://www.nhs.uk/aboutnhschoices/aboutnhschoices/termsandconditions/pages/termsandcondit