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.
Complaints
We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
To pursue a complaint please contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception, in person, by written request, by submitting a on-line consultation or request by telephone. We will acknowledge a complaint within 3 days and reply within a result of investigation within 10 working days unless there are circumstances such as staff absence that may delay the process.
Violence Policy NHS Zero Tolerance
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 may notify the police. We will notify Primary Care Support England (PCSE) who manage patients' registrations of request for patient removal. PCSE will then notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list.
Social Media
In this digital age some people choose to air their concerns regarding services on social media. Comments posted on social media can be positive or negative. Whilst we appreciate kind comments some can be of a negative nature and attract all manner of further negative responses – often becoming individualised comments rather than constructive feedback about an organisation. Derogatory and rude remarks /posts about our practice staff have been brought to our attention in the past.
We welcome all feedback – positive and negative, however we ask that patients feedback to the surgery through this website or by completing a feedback form available in reception. For complaints please follow our complaints policy.
If any offensive social media posts are brought to our attention, we may contact the patient/s involved and invite them to have a face-to-face discussion about the issues that they have raised. However, depending on the content of the post, it may be viewed as a potential breakdown in the doctor-patient relationship.
Our staff respect all patients and will never follow or post about a patient. Our staff will not post or discuss practice business or work related content.