Chaperones
You have a right to have a chaperone with you at any appointment that you have at the practice. If you feel this is something you would like the practice to provide, please let reception know prior to your appointment or let the GP or Nurse know at the start of your consultation. The practice has several members of staff who have been specially trained to perform this role and there is usually one on duty at any time. If during your consultation you feel you would like one then so please let the person consulting you know.
Interpreters
Please let a member of the reception team know, preferably when you book your appointment, if you feel you need an interpreter present during your consultation. The practice can access interpreting services over the telephone or in person depending on your particular need.
Patient Confidentiality
The NHS asks you for information about yourself so that you can receive proper care and treatment. This information is kept together with details of your care, because it may be needed if you are seen again.
The NHS may use some of this information for other reasons for example:
- To help improve the health of the public generally
- To see that the NHS runs efficiently
- To plan for the future
- To train NHS staff
- To pay bills
- To carry out medical and other health research for the benefit for everyone
Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential.
Staff at Selden Medical Centre are not permitted to disclose any information about you to any third party (even a close relative such as a husband or wife) without your explicit consent. Sometimes the law requires the NHS to pass on information: for example to notify a birth. The NHS Central Register for England & Wales contains basic personal details of all patients registered with a general practitioner. The Register does not contain clinical information.
You may be receiving care and treatment from other organisations as well as the NHS. In these circumstances, it maybe necessary to share some information about you so that you receive the best possible treatment. We only every use or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it in your and everyone’s interests. Whenever we can, we shall remove details which identify you. The sharing of some types of very sensitive personal information is strictly controlled by law.
If your doctor is requested to report information to external agencies such as solicitors or insurances companies, he/she will only do so with your explicit consent.
Anyone who received information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.
THE MAIN REASONS FOR WHICH YOUR INFORMATION MAY BE NEEDED ARE:
- Giving you health care and treatment
- Looking after the health of the general public. For example:
- Screening programmes
- Disease registers
- Managing and planning the NHS (where steps will be taken to ensure you cannot be identified) For example:
- Making sure that our services can meet patient needs in the future
- Paying your doctor, nurse, dentist or other staff and the hospitals which treats you for the care they provide
- Auditing accounts
- Preparing statistics on NHS performance and activity investigating complaints or legal claims
- Helping staff to review the care they provide to make sure it is of the highest standard. For example:
- Clinical Audit – clinical Audit is a clinically led initiative which seeks to improve the quality and outcome of patient care through structured peer review where by clinicians examine their practices and results against agreed standards and modify their practice where indicated
- Training and educating staff (but you can choose whether or not to be involved personally)
- Research approved by the Local Research Ethics Committee. (If anything to do with the research would involve you personally, you will be contacted to see if you are willing to take part. You will not be identified in any published results without your agreement.)
Zero Tolerance
The Practice is committed to providing high quality care for our patients. The relationship between patients and those working in the surgery is an important, 2 way process. We, therefore, have a zero tolerance policy and the following behaviour will not be tolerated:- Rudeness, swearing, shouting, drunkenness or verbal/physical abuse. Such behaviour has a marked effect on staff and other patients. Where such behaviour is observed, we reserve the right to withdraw from treating the patient and ensure removal of those involved from the premises. A patient displaying such behaviour may also be removed from our list.
Practice Charter Standards
Our Responsibility to You
We are committed to giving you the best possible care.
Names: People involved in your care will give you their names and ensure that you know how to contact them. The surgery should be well signposted.
Waiting Time: We run an appointment system in this practice. You will be given a time at which the doctor or nurse hopes to be able to see you. You should not have to wait more than 30 minutes in the waiting room without receiving an explanation for the delay.
Access: You will have access to a doctor on the same day in cases of emergency. We will arrange a home visit as appropriate for those who are too ill or infirm to be brought to the surgery.
Telephone: We will try to answer the phone promptly and ensure that there are sufficient staff to do this. You should be able to speak to a doctor by telephone but it is very likely that the doctor will be asked to call you back.
Respect: Patients will be treated as individuals and partners in their healthcare, irrespective of their ethnic origin or religious and cultural beliefs. We do not discriminate on any basis.
Information: We will give you full information about the services we offer. Every effort will be made to ensure that you receive the information which directly affects your health and the care being offered.
Health Promotion: The practice will offer patients advice and information on:
steps they can take to promote good health and avoid illness;
self-help which can be undertaken without reference to a doctor in the case of minor ailments.
Health Records: You have the right to see your health records, subject to limitations in the law. These will be kept confidential at all times.
Your Responsibility to Us
Help us to help you.
- Please let us know if you change your name, address or telephone number.
- Please do everything you can to keep appointments. Tell us as soon as possible if you cannot. Otherwise, other patients may have to wait longer.
We need help too.
- Please ask for home visits by the doctor only when the patient is too ill to visit the surgery.
- Please keep your phone call brief and avoid calling during the peak morning time for non-urgent matters.
- Test results take time to reach us, so please do not ring before you have been asked to do so.
- We ask that you treat the doctors and the practice staff with courtesy and respect at all times.
- Please ask us questions if you are unsure of anything.
- Remember, you are responsible for your own health and the health of your children. We will give you our professional help and advice. Please act upon it.