Abbey Medical Centre

Zero Tolerance Policy

Abbey Medical Centre takes it very seriously if a member of our team is treated in an abusive or violent way.  Thankfully this is an incredibly rare occurrence but for the avoidance of doubt, please see our Zero Tolerance Policy below:

We support 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.

Our team aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances whilst dealing with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time.  Our team 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, intimidating or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain a good relationship with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

 - Using bad language or swearing at practice staff

 - Any physical violence towards any member of the team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving

 - Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff

 - Any form of intimidation

 - Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice

 - Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted 

 - Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients

 - Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

We ask that you treat our team courteously at all times and in return, we will do all we can to try and help and support you.  Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot

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 the immediate removal on the grounds of violence, for example when the Police are involved.

Vaccination is a high priority action for the NHS, to protect people from serious illness and to support NHS and adult social care resilience.

Ensuring that eligible people receive high quality information about vaccination from people they trust, and providing a convenient offer in which people have confidence, are critical actions to maximise protection.

The groups to be offered a COVID-19 vaccine in autumn/winter 2024/25 are:

• residents in a care home for older adults
• all adults aged 65 years and over
• persons aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group, as defined in tables 3 and 4 of the COVID-19 chapter of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) Green Book on immunisation against infectious disease.

The following groups are to be offered flu in autumn/winter 2024/25:

From 1 September 2024:

• pregnant women
• all children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2024
• primary school aged children (from Reception to Year 6)
• secondary school aged children (from Year 7 to Year 11)
• all children in clinical risk groups aged from 6 months to less than 18 years

From October 2024:

• those aged 65 years and over
• those aged 18 years to under 65 years in clinical risk groups (as defined by the Green Book, Influenza Chapter 19)
• those in long-stay residential care homes
• carers in receipt of carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person
• close contacts of immunocompromised individuals
• frontline workers in a social care setting without an employer led occupational health scheme including those working for a registered residential care or nursing home, registered domiciliary care providers, voluntary managed hospice providers and those that are employed by those who receive direct payments (personal budgets) or Personal Health budgets, such as Personal Assistants

Please click the link below to download the NHS App.

NHS App | www.nhs.uk