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.
Compliments or Complaints
We are always pleased to receive suggestions for improving our services and we like getting compliments as well. We hope you never have cause for serious complaint, but if you think you do, we have a complaints procedure aimed at a quick resolution of any problem.
A Complaints Leaflet is available.
In the first instance, please speak to the Complaints Manager.
We hope that you will allow us to put right any problems that you have or mistakes that have been made. However if you feel unable to raise your complaint with us you can approach:
NHS England
PO Box 16738
Redditch
B97 9PT
Tel: 03003 11 22 33
E-mail: england.contactus@nhs.net
If you remain dissatisfied after receiving the response to your complaint or remain unhappy after local resolution, you can take your complaint to the Health Service Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is completely independent of the NHS and Government and can be contacted at:
The Parlimentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
Tel: 0345 015 4033 or visit the website at:
www.ombudsman.org.uk
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.