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 Practitioners 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.
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.
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.
Urgent Prescriptions Policy
Due to the increasing numbers of patients requesting their prescription on an urgent basis, the practice has needed to introduce an Urgent Prescription Policy.
Requests for prescriptions outside the normal prescription protocol impact significantly on both doctors and administration staff time as well as increasing the risk of a medication prescribing error.
Unless a medication is clinically urgent, requests will be processed routinely (up to 5 working days).
Please respect our staff
- Our reception and administrative staff are to always follow this policy and they are not authorised to make any exceptions.
- Staff are not allowed to interrupt a GP during surgery.
- This policy is put in place to protect our patients and our staff, and we will not tolerate any abuse to our staff as they are following policy.
Many medications can safely be missed for a few days.
- Urgent prescription requests are requests for emergency medication which are needed within 24 hours to prevent the patient from becoming seriously ill.
- Urgent prescription requests are not requests for medication which have been ordered late as it is your responsibility to ensure that repeat prescription requests are ordered in time.
- This will ensure safe prescribing and optimise access to the clinical team.
If you forget to obtain a prescription for repeat medication and run out of important medicines, you may be able to get help from your Pharmacy.
- Under the Urgent Provision of Repeat Medication Service, Pharmacists may be able to supply you with a further cycle of a previously repeated medicine, without having to get a prescription from your GP.
You must then take with you to the relevant Pharmacy, proof of both your identification and of your medication (for example, your repeat prescription list or the empty box which should have your details printed on it).
Exceptions: Controlled drugs and antibiotics are not provided through this service; you will need to call 111 for these if you are unable to wait the usual 5 working days.
Holiday Medication
- Holidays are normally booked weeks or months in advance, therefore when preparing for your holiday, please remember to process a request for your routine medication allowing the normal 5 working days for processing.
- We are unable to provide emergency prescriptions for holiday medication.