About Us

Practice Policies

Zero Tolerance
Roundwood Surgery is committed to taking all reasonable precautions necessary to ensure the health, safety, welfare and well-being of its employees, patients and visitors, and endeavours to ensure that all employees are protected from physical and verbal abuse while they are working.
The Practice acknowledges that there may be instances where violence and/or aggression forms part of a patient’s illness. In these circumstances, the issue will be discussed with the patient and form part of their care planning.
This information will be recorded in the patient’s medical record and flagged to ensure that staff are aware. In addition, where deemed necessary, appropriate support will be put in place, e.g. supported appointments with clinicians.
Patients who are excessively under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol could be asked to rebook their appointment.
This is in line with our Zero Tolerance policy.

Definition of Physical and Verbal Abuse and Violence:
Physical and verbal abuse includes:
Unreasonable and/or offensive remarks or behaviour/rude gestures/innuendoes
Sexual and racial harassment
Threatening behaviour (physically or verbally)
Physical assault including being pushed or shoved, physically hit, punched or attacked, or being intentionally struck with bodily fluids or excrement
Discrimination of any kind
Damage to employee’s or employer’s property

The Practice supports the NHS policy of Zero Tolerance which defines violence as:
Any incident where staff are abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances related to their work, involving an explicit or implicit challenge to their safety, well-being or health.

Violence and aggression towards a person may also be defined as:
Physical contact with another person which may or may not result in pain or injury. The contact is uninvited and is an attempt to cause harm, injury or to intimidate. Non-physical aggression includes the use of language which causes offence or threatens the safety of a member of staff.

Missed Appointments (DNA’s)
We take missed appointments at Roundwood very seriously and are continually working towards reducing the amount of DNA’d appointments.

Please always ensure you cancel your appointment in good time if you know you cannot attend or it is not suitable on 01623 648880.

Policy for Missed Appointments
Due to the amount of wasted clinical appointments, we regret that we must take the following action against those patients who abuse our service:
If a patient fails to attend two appointments in any six month period without letting us know, they will receive a warning letter. If any more appointments are missed in the next six months the patient will receive a letter informing them that the Partners are considering whether they should be removed from the practice list which may result in them having to register with another practice.