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 need access to your medical records to do their jobs. All 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 the Freedom of Information Act can be made available to the general 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 we may charge an administration fee. No information will be released without the patient's consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Concerns and Complaints
We make every effort to give the best service possible to every patient who attends our practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong and a patient may feel that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would like the opportunity to look into your concerns and discuss this with you so we can look into it as quickly as we can and make changes if possible.
If you would like to discuss any concerns or complaints, please write to the Practice Manager. Further written information is available about the complaints procedure from reception.
Zero Tolerance
A zero tolerance policy towards violent, threatening and abusive behaviour is now in place throughout the NHS.
The doctors, nurses and staff in this practice have the right to do their work in an environment free from violent, threatening or abusive behaviour and everything will be done to protect that right.
At no time will any such behaviour be tolerated in this practice. If you do not respect the rights of our staff we may choose to inform the police and make arrangements for you to be removed from our medical list.
Did Not Attend (DNA) Policy
Most of our Patients know it can sometimes be difficult to get a routine appointment with a GP or Nurse. In the course of events where demand is unpredictable, that cannot easily be remedied.
One thing that makes this more difficult to overcome is the problem of missed routine appointments – DNAs.
Where Patients have been declined routine appointments because the consultations are fully booked, it is at best disappointing when one of those booked appointments does not turn up and has not contacted the Practice to cancel the appointment so that it can be released for others or telephones so late as to make it impossible to allocate to another Patient.
In 2015, there were 2,747 such DNAs - with either GPs or Nurses and, in some cases, double appointments at specialist clinics. This is the equivalent of 457 hours of missed clinical appointments.
Due to the number of patients failing to attend for their appointment this may mean that you may not be able to see the doctor on the day that you wish to.
In an attempt to try and resolve this, the practice has developed the following policy.
- If you fail to attend appointments without informing us we will write to you asking if you could inform the practice if you are unable to attend your appointment.
- If you fail to attend on 3 occasions throughout a 12 month period for appointments you may be removed from the practice list and have to find an alternative GP practice.
Remember that your DNA is another Patient’s denied appointment
Should you need to cancel: here’s how
- By telephone: Call 01928 711911
- By text: Text cancel to 0780 0000199