“If I die, it will be your fault” is just one of the abusive comments heard by GP reception staff at the practice, as a new survey launched today shows 75% of staff across the country experience daily abuse from patients.
A new campaign video, launched today by the Institute of General Practice Management (IGPM) aims to help end all abuse towards general practice staff. The video includes real-life examples of patient interactions from practices across the UK, including:
- GP staff whose tyres were slashed by a patient who had not been able to get an appointment that day;
- A receptionist with Chinese heritage, who received racist abuse and was spat on in relation to the Covid-19 virus;
- Daily verbal threats including the common phrase: “If I die, it will be your fault”.
Research launched today shows the majority of practice staff (78%) have faced threatening behaviour, racist or sexist abuse from patients, and 83% reporting having called the police for help.
As demand for services at the practice has increased dramatically over the last year, sadly so has the amount of abuse our practice staff have faced.
We’re taking part in this national campaign to highlight the good work practices like ours are doing, and make a plea to the public to be patient with our staff, instead of attacking them. We’ve worked throughout the pandemic and have done our absolute best to support patients. We’re calling for the abuse to end now.
The survey of 571 GP practice managers showed that 83% have had to remove a patient from the surgery due to multiple incidents towards their team. Other recent research from an NHS Staff Survey showed that 14.9% of respondents had been subjected to physical violence while in work. Much abuse goes unreported and national annual data on physical assaults against NHS staff are no longer published. The ‘If I die it will be your fault’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the zero-tolerance approach to abuse and encourage all practice staff to feel confident about reporting incidents.