Zero Tolerance

Zero Tolerance

St Mark’s Medical Centre operates a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in regard to incidents of aggressive or abusive behaviour towards our members of staff. Incidences of this unacceptable behaviour directed towards a member of staff or another patient will not be tolerated, and we are determined to ensure all employees and patients are protected from such behaviour.

We are not referring to expressions of frustration or complaints which you may have about our services, we welcome feedback from patients which is expressed in a fair and reasonable manner. All staff at St Marks Medical Centre will always endeavour to help patient’s needs and are committed to provide quality healthcare for the benefit of all our patients.

Our policy is that, when the line is crossed our staff will make that clear to the person involved and ask them to stop, if the behaviour continues after a verbal warning the member of staff will either terminate the conversation on the phone or ask the patient to leave the practice premises if on site.

Examples of what is unacceptable include:

  • Shouting, physical intimidation or other threatening action
  • Verbal abuse
  • Racist abuse
  • Sexual or sexist abuse/ remarks
  • Physical violence

The case will be reported to the practice manager and discussed with a senior GP at the earliest opportunity to decide on the course of appropriate action. Possible actions include:

  • Patient warning letter issued. If three warning letters have been issued this will result in the eventual removal from our practice list.
  • In serious cases, incidences will be reported to the police and the patient will be removed from the practice list with no issue of warning.

This has been in place for a number of years and is in accordance with general NHS policy. We acknowledge that the vast majority of patients behave respectfully, however there are patients who can be abusive.