The NHS zero tolerance zone campaign of violence against general practitioners and their staff, is supported by the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General. Assaults on staff are regarded as serious matters, worthy of prosecution. The campaign has two aims:

* To make it absolutely clear to the public
that violence or verbal abuse against staff
working in, and or, the NHS is
unacceptable and the Government, and the
NHS has made a commitment to stamp it out; and

* To reassure all staff that violence
and intimidation is unacceptable and is
being tackled.

The term violence covers a wide range of incidents, not all of which involve injury. The definition used here is;

“Any incident in which a person working in the healthcare sector is verbally abused, threatened or assaulted by a patient or member of the public in circumstances relating to his or her employment.”

Using this definition, violent incidents do not necessarily need to cause physical harm. The range of incidents can include those that:

* Cause major injury
* Require medical assistance
* Require first aid only
* Involve a threat, even if no physical injury results
* Involve verbal abuse
* Involve non-verbal abuse
* Involve other threatening behaviour

Any patient found committing any of the above incidents will be removed from the practice patient list.