Wight Vets aims to provide a professional and caring service for patients and clients alike.

To ensure a good relationship, and to successfully provide our services, a foundation of mutual trust, confidence and respect must be maintained.

Our team aim to treat clients courteously at all times, and expect our clients to treat our staff in a similarly respectful way. We aim to be polite, helpful and sensitive to the individual needs and circumstances of our clients.

All team members have a right to care for client’s animals without fear of being attacked or abused. We take it very seriously if any member of the team is treated in such a way, and take a zero-tolerance approach to any threatening, abusive or violent behaviour against any of our staff.

The team understand that clients will not always act in a reasonable manner when their animals are ill, and we will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

Aggressive behaviour, be it violent 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 Wight Vets to maintain good relations with our clients and their animals, we would like to ask all clients to read and take note of the non-exhaustive list of behaviours that would be found unacceptable:

Any attempted or actual physical violence towards staff, other clients or animals in our care such as pushing or shoving or the threat of causing physical harm

Using violent, threatening or abusive language or behaviours towards our staff, our clients or animals in our care

Making racial, sexual or any other kind of discriminatory remarks, implications or gestures

Any attempted or actual damage to our property and/or equipment, and/or any personal property or belongings of our staff

Theft or attempted theft from the Practice’s premises, team or clients
Making malicious allegations.
Failing to comply with our policies and requirements including health and safety rules.
Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress on team members
Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

The above applies to any individual or anyone connected to that individual and extends to behaviour in person, via the telephone, email, online and social media. It covers our practice grounds and vehicles, and also applies to any member of staff away from the practice, but only in so far as it relates to the provision of veterinary services.

For third party contractors or service providers,we will cease using your services with immediate effect and any criminal acts will be reported to the police.

Removal from the Practice List

A good client-vet relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good client care. The removal of clients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired client-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the client’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new provider of veterinary services. There are no grounds for appeal and the decision of the practice is final.

Wight Vets have a three-stage process to dealing with unacceptable client behaviour in our practice:

Stage One: The client will be asked to stop and, if necessary, to leave the premises. The practice will issue a written warning regarding the unacceptable behaviour and a record of this written warning will be kept on the client’s records.

Stage Two: If a client’s unacceptable behaviour persists following receipt of the written warning, we will terminate our client-practice relationship resulting in the termination of all veterinary services to the client. The practice will issue a written notice of this termination of services. A record of the notice will be kept on the client’s records for a period of up to 7 years from the date of the written notice.

Please note, we reserve the right to omit Stage 1 and progress straight to Stage 2 in instances where the unacceptable behaviour is deemed excessive by the practice staff.

Stage Three: In the event that unacceptable behaviour persists after the termination of veterinary services, a final written notice will be issued. Incidents of threatening, abusive or violent behaviour will be reported to the local Police Service and we may pursue appropriate legal action.

We reserve the right to immediately terminate the provision of all veterinary services without following the above three-stage process in certain instances. Examples of such instances are as follows (please note that this is a non-exhaustive list):

there is a threat to the physical safety of our staff, other clients or animals within our care;
the unacceptable client behaviour is wilfully discriminatory in nature; or
the relationship between the client and the vet has been irreparably damaged.

In such instances, we may involve the police or other applicable law enforcement, as needed.

We thank you for your understanding and compliance to this Zero Tolerance Policy, which is in place for the best interests of our hard-working staff, as well as the clients and animals who we care for.