Patient Charter

As a patient of the practice we aim to provide you with the highest quality of healthcare through the teams of professionals at our Practice.

How we will help you

· A courteous welcome at our front desk or on the telephone by a receptionist who will help you to make the best use of our services. Regular training ensures that their knowledge is up to date.

· Our team are bound by NHS rules on confidentiality. Our Receptionists will ask the reason for your appointment, to ensure that we can offer you the most appropriate appointment in a timely manner. If you wish to speak to any member of the team privately, please ask.

· An urgent appointment will be offered with an appropriate clinician on the same day if necessary.

· We will provide a home visit if you are too unwell, or due to incapacity, cannot visit the surgery.

· Treatment and care will always be provided by a suitable and qualified person and no care or treatment will be provided without consent.

· We will take the necessary time to ensure patients understand their conditions, treatment options and medication. We will listen to patients opinions and views in all aspects of their care.

· Surgeries and clinics which will normally start on time. We aim to see you within 20 minutes of your appointment time.

· Please appreciate that delay is sometimes unavoidable due to emergencies, but when this happens we will try to keep you informed.

· If you are on regular medications, repeat prescriptions will normally be available within three working days of their request. We ask that these are requested online, through your local pharmacy, or by using Voice Connect.

· Access to your health records, subject to any limitations in the law and payment of any relevant fees.

· Complaints will be dealt with in a timely manner by the practice manager and/or the partner responsible for dealing with complaints. We will investigate any complaint fully and you will recieve a response/apology when this is appropriate. We will ensure that there is no negative impact as a result of your complaint.

How you can help us

Making responsible use of the service in consideration of other patients, for example:

· Let us know in good time if you are running late, or unable to attend your appointment.

· Please ring after 11.30am for test results and after 9am for non-urgent communications

· Make all requests for urgent or same day care as early in the day as possible.

· If you are expecting a call back from us, keep your phone with you and available where possible to make it easier for us to contact you.

· If you change your name/address/telephone number please let us know so we can keep your record up to date.

· If equipment is loaned from the surgery, please return it when no longer required to enable others to use it.

· Be informed about your health and answer questions about your health openly and honestly.

· Please ensure repeat prescriptions are requested before your supply has run out. We aim to process repeat prescriptions within 3 working days.

· Ensure that you book and attend your clinical review appointments that you are invited to. These must be attended to ensure safe prescribing of any medication and monitoring of any long-term conditions. We aim to invite patients for reviews at a similar time to their birthday month.

· Advising us of improvements you think we might be able to make to our facilities and organisation by passing your views in writing or verbally to our practice manager or any member of the team.

Our Responsibility To You

All patients will be treated with respect, kindness and dignity, irrespective of ethnic origin, religion, cultural beliefs, sex or age.

Your Responsibility To Us

We ask you to treat the practice staff with the same courtesy and respect. They are all here to help.

Zero Tolerance

The practice takes it very seriously if any member of staff is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances and they are very often confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. Staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in a patient being removed from the practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice expects patients not to display the types of behaviour below that would be found unacceptable:

Using bad language or swearing at practice staff

Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving

Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff or making derogatory comments

Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice

Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot

Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients

Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

Removal from the practice list

A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

Removing other members of the household

In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.