Abuse Policy

Abuse Policy

At Leith Surgery we will always try to treat you with respect. We also recognise that you may be consulting us at a time in your life when things are difficult.

To protect the welfare of our staff and our ability to provide healthcare in a safe environment, we take a "zero tolerance" approach to managing any instances of abuse.

Abuse includes

• physical violence directed towards people or property

• threat of violence, including perceived threat

• verbal abuse, including abusive language, offensive language or shouting

• repeated unreasonable demands of our staff

• harassment

• intimidation

• unlawful activity on our premises including theft or vandalism

• criminality against our staff, business or property

• attempting unauthorised access to information or to restricted areas of our premises

Our actions if we become aware of abuse

If we recognise that abuse is likely to have taken place, we may take one or more of the following actions, depending on the situation:

• removal of a patient from our list of patients, which can be an immediate removal

  • • we will notify the patient in writing and we will document the circumstances leading to the removal in the GP patient record

• giving written or verbal advice about acceptable behaviour, with a risk of removal from the patient list if the behaviour is repeated

• recording details of an incident in the GP patient record

• barring persons from our premises

• asking the police to attend

• reporting a criminal incident to the police, submitting personal information and CCTV footage to the police