Patient Charter

Our Commitment To You

You will be treated as a partner in the care and attention that you receive.

You will be treated as an individual, and will be given courtesy and respect at all times irrespective of your ethnic origin, religious beliefs, personal attributes or the nature of your health problems.
Following discussion you will be given the most appropriate care, given by suitably qualified people. No care or treatment will be given without your informed consent.
You have the right to see your health records, subject to any limitations in law, which will be kept confidential.
We will give you full information about the services we offer. Every effort will be made to ensure that you receive any information which directly affects your health and the care being offered.
All staff in your care will be identifiable by name.
When attending the surgery you can expect to be informed of any excessive delays.
The practice is committed to monitoring the care given to you by secondary care organisations such as hospitals.

Your responsibilities to us

Come to the surgery wherever possible. If an appointment has been made, you are responsible for keeping it. If you are unable to come please inform us. That time will then be available for someone else.
If you are aware that your consultation may be exceptionally long you should ask for a double appointment. If several family members are ill, please make an appointment for each of them.
Some consultations are unexpectedly long. It may be that arrangements have to be made to get a patient into hospital immediately. These can be unpredictable and may cause delays. You will be informed of the delay and we ask that you are tolerant.
The doctor can see many more patients in surgery than when out visiting. Most children can be brought to the surgery and will be seen more promptly than if a home visit is requested. Home visits are for people whose medical condition means that they cannot leave the house for medical reasons.

Please use the out-of-hours service responsibly. It is not currently resourced to provide a service for non-urgent problems out of normal working hours.

COMPLAINTS AND COMMENTS

We are happy to receive comments and suggestions about the practice and these are often helpful when we make improvements. We also receive letters of thanks on various matters and these are very much appreciated by all the staff who work here.

We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of the NHS for dealing with complaints. Our system meets nationally set criteria. Complaints should be addressed to the Practice Manger in the first instance. This may be in writing, or if you prefer, a personal appointment may be made. You will receive an acknowledgement of your complaint within two working days and we will aim to offer you an explanation or a meeting within 10 working days. Our practice complaints leaflet gives full details and is available from reception.

USE OF CLINICAL DATA

As part of this Practice's contribution to the study of clinical care, we provide important anonymised information on diseases and treatments for research by third parties including academic, patient and commercial organisations. No identifiable information such as your name and address is provided. These data are combined with similar data from many other practices to give more than 1 million anonymised records. Such information contributes to our understanding of health and health care.

This practice is registered under the Data Protection Act, Registration Number Z4597556.

PATIENT RECORDS AND CONFIDENTIALITY

All records of patient contact, correspondence and results are held on computer. There is a comprehensive system of back up to ensure complete security. Under the terms of the Data Protection Act patients have a right to view their records. Application to view the records should be made in writing to the practice manager. We reserve the right to charge an administration fee for the production