Patient Charter

How you can help us

• Be on time for your appointment
• Tell us if you need to cancel. If you do not use an uncancelled appointment we will write to you.
• If a patient does not attend booked appointments three times in a two year period, we reserve the right to remove them from our list.
• Call for a home visit or urgent appointment as early as possible preferably before 10.00am
• Please remember that each 10 minute appointment is for one condition only. If you need to discuss more than one non-urgent condition, please notify the receptionist who will then look to arrange a double appointment for you.

Patient Confidentialty

All patient information is considered to be confidential and we comply fully with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Caldicott principles. All employees in the practice have access to this information in relation to their role, have confidentiality clauses in their contracts of employment and have signed a confidentiality agreement. All staff members adhere to the Confidentiality: NHS Code of Practice 2003.

Where appropriate, patient information may be shared with other parties within the care team. However, they must be involved in the direct care of patients, based on implied consent. This will be on a "need to know" basis only and in order to ensure the safe, effective care of patients. Where a patient wishes information not to be shared within the team providing direct care, then they must discuss this with their GP.

Patient information will not be shared outside of the direct care team without consent being sought. An individual has the right to refuse to have their information disclosed, although this may have an impact on their care, and their wishes will be complied with.

It is imperitive that when it is right to release details to 3rd parties that the information only includes what has been asked for and not necessarily the full record.

There is currently one national data extraction from which patients may wish to "opt out".

Suggestions and Complaints

We endeavour to help you but are conscious that occasionally things go wrong (no one is perfect). Please address any suggestions for improvement or complaints to the Practice Manager.

We aim to treat our patients courteously at all times and expect our patients to treat our staff in a similarly respectful way. We take seriously any threatening, abusive or violent behaviour against any of our staff or patients. This includes via Social Media. If a patient is violent or abusive they will be warned to stop their behaviour. It they persist, we may exercise our right to take action to have them removed, immediately if necessary, from our list of patients.