Patients Charter

Patients' Rights and Responsibilities

·   We would request that you treat our staff with courtesy all times, remember they are a bridge and not a barrier, in helping you to access the medical service that you require.

·   Please respond in a positive way to questions asked by the reception staff.

·  Please attend appointments on time or give the practice adequate notice if you wish to cancel.  Someone else could benefit from your cancelled appointment. Ask reception about our SMS reminder service.

·  Remember an appointment is for one person only – if the appointment is for two people, another appointment should be made or request a longer appointment.

·   Please remember home visits are for medical emergencies and housebound patients only. Wherever possible patients should attend the surgery for their appointment. Home visits should be medically justifiable and not requested for social convenience.

·  When you request a repeat prescription, please give us 48 hours notice this is to allow for accurate prescribing, and time to process the prescription due to the volume needed to be processed. 

·   The practice provides an Out-of-hours emergency service at evenings, nights and weekends. This service is purely for emergency use and not routine matters. All routine matters are dealt with during normal surgery hours.

Patients’ rights to General Medical Services

Patients have the right to:

·  Be registered with a General Practitioner.

·  Change doctor if desired.

·  Be offered a health check on joining the practice.

·  Receive emergency care at any time from the practice.

·  Receive appropriate drugs and medicines.

·  Be referred for specialist or second opinion, if they and the GP agrees.

·  Have the right to view their medical records, subject to the Acts and to know that those working for the NHS are under legal obligation to keep the contents confidential.

·  We will respect our patients’ privacy, dignity and confidentiality at all times.

Sharing Patient information

The responsibility of making decisions about disclosure ultimately rests with the GP however the following rules always apply when dealing with patient identifiable information.

·  Justify the purpose.

·  Do not use patient identifiable information unless absolutely necessary.

·  Use the minimum patient identifiable information.

·  Access to patient identifiable information is only ever on a strict need to know basis.

·  Each member of staff should be aware of their responsibilities.

·  Only ever Fax to a confirmed “Save Haven” fax.

·  Do not use E-mail for patient identifiable information unless using a safe encrypted account (nhs.net)

·  Any data held on the computer will only be used if it relevant and will be in the interest of medical treatment.

·  A strict code of confidentiality is followed throughout the practice.



 
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