Confidentiality & Medical Records

The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

• To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.

• To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.

• When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.

Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.

Access to Records

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

Patient Charter

The patients charter has now been extended to Primary Care and we aim to provide all our patients with a high quality service to meet your health care needs.

Aims

We will try to answer the telephone promptly and say who is answering your call.

Appointments:

Improved access 
Same day appointments are available daily. 
Please ring after 8.00am. 
Pre-bookable appointments are for those who need to arrange appointments around otherwise busy working lives. 
If you wish to speak to Primary Health Team Members, we will try to arrange a convenient time for you to do so, or have your call returned.
We will try to start surgeries on time, emergencies permitting. 

We will try to see 80% of you within 30 minutes of your appointment time assuming:

You have let us know if you cannot keep your appointment. 
There is only one patient per appointment. 
There are not too many patients wanting acute (same day) emergency appointments. 
The Doctor is not called out on an emergency house call. 
We will keep you informed of reasons for delays.

We will try and keep the premises in reasonable condition. 

We will try to do house calls within three hours of the end of morning surgery.

Demand does vary, and at times there may be competing priorities for the on-call doctor.

Only information you give can help this doctor to decide medical priority...so please give generously! 

Rights & Responsibilities

What You Can Expect Of Us:

• To be treated as an individual and to give you courtesy and respect at all times.

• To offer you an appointment on the same day for an urgent problem.

• To offer an appointment with the doctor of your choice for non-urgent problems.

• To provide you with access to your medical records – subject to any limitations of the law and subject to a charge.

• To offer advice on disease prevention and health promotion.

• To process repeat prescriptions within 48 hours.

• To maintain your confidentiality and not disclose information to a third party without your consent. This includes not releasing results by telephone to another person without prior consent from you.

• To continue the training and education of both our staff and ourselves as clinicians so that we may remain up-to-date in knowledge and skills and are able to maintain the level of care we offer.

• To ensure that if there is a breakdown in our relationship to the extent that you are asked to leave the Practice, you will be provided with an explanation as to why we feel this is necessary.

• To only remove people from our list when no other solution is possible.

• To ensure that if you feel the need to make a complaint, this will not detrimentally affect the standard of service you receive from us.

• Not to allow prejudice against anyone on the basis of their gender, disabilities, age, race or religion.

What We Can Reasonably Expect From You:

• To treat the doctors and staff with the same courtesy and respect you would wish to be shown to you.

• To inform us of any change of your name, address or telephone number promptly.
  To be punctual for appointments and let us know in good time if you are unable to attend.

• To request repeat prescriptions in good time and allow 2 working days for them to be processed.

• To use the Out-of-Hours service for emergencies only.

• To make requests for home visits only when it is strictly necessary.

• To request home visits before 10.30 am if possible.

• To act upon the advice of the health professionals and take medication as prescribed.

• To attend a new patient health check shortly after registering with the practice
  Violent/Abusive Patients.

Complaints

We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

To pursue a complaint please contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.

Violence Policy

The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.