Practice Charter

Patient rights and responsibilities

You will be treated with respect and as a partner in your care.

We will:
• Ensure our patients have 24-hour access to medical advice
• Aim for you to have access to a suitably qualified medical professional within 48 hours of your initial contact during surgery hours or, in an urgent case, the same day.
• Work in partnership with you to achieve the best medical care possible.
• Involve you and listen to your opinions and views in all aspects of you medical care.
• Advise and inform you of the steps you can take to promote good health and a healthy lifestyle.

Being a partner means you too have responsibilities...

We would respectfully ask that you:
• Let us know if you intend to cancel an appointment or are running late
• Treat staff with courtesy and respect. Reception staff may have to ask some personal questions to assist us in providing you with the best service.
• Inform the practice staff of any alterations in your circumstances, such as change of surname, address or telephone number. Please ensure that we have your most up-to-date telephone number, even if it's ex-directory.

As patients, you are responsible for your own health and that of any dependants. It is important that you adhere to information and advice given to you by health professionals, and co-operate with the practice in endeavouring to keep you healthy.

You and your doctor

Patients are registered with the practice, not an individual GP. For administrative reasons your medical card will be issued in the name of one of the doctors; however, you can at any time express a preference for a particular doctor. This preference can be recorded in your medical notes and we will do our best to respect your choice. However, not all the doctors in the practice provide all services and specific doctors may not be immediately available.

Confidentiality

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 ie from district nurses and hospital services.
• When we have a duty to others ie in child protection cases.

Anonymous patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Local Health Board and Government plan services eg for diabetic care. If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.

Suggestions or Complaints

We make every effort to give the best possible service possible to everyone who attends our practice. However, we're aware that things can go wrong, resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, please place your complaint in writing to the practice manager.

Zero Tolerance

The practice considers the use of bad language, abusive comments, threatening gestures or physical contact to be unacceptable behaviour.

The practice will request the removal of any patient and immediate family members from the practice list who is aggressive or abusive towards a doctor, member of staff, another patient, or if they damage property. All instances of actual physical abuse on any doctor or member of staff, by a patient or their relatives will be reported to the police as assault.

Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 obliges the practice to produce a Publication Scheme. A Publication Scheme is a guide to the 'classes' of information the practice intends to routinely make available.

This scheme is available from reception.