Practice Charter

Our Aim

The doctors, nurses, administrative staff and attached staff genuinely try to do their best for patients within the time and resources available to us. You can expect a level of care from this practice that is of the highest standard, based on mutual respect and trust. We aim to provide a friendly, professional atmosphere. We hope to be able to offer routine appointments to see the doctor or nurse within one working day, and urgent consultations on the same day. We will endeavour to see all routine appointments within 10 minutes of their appointment time.

Effective healthcare is dependent on a successful partnership between the patient and the primary healthcare team. This means requesting help from the appropriate resources that are detailed on this website; you will find information about other healthcare professionals and the services they are able to provide. We are continually working towards clinical excellence and any comments or suggestions you may have on how we can improve our service to you are always greatly appreciated.

Freedom Of Information

The Freedom of Information Act obliges the practice to produce a publication scheme which is a guide to the 'classes' of information the practice intends to routinely make available.

Comments And Suggestions

The practice is always happy to recieve patients' suggestions on ways we might improve our service.

Complaints

Inevitably, we cannot satisfy every request we get, and that can be upsetting for some patients. We are all human, and there may be occasions when something goes wrong, more often by acts of omission than commission. (There is an established procedure by which complaints by any patient or member of the practice about any patient can be made.) If you have a problem with the practice, please follow the approved procedure in order to register your complaint.

The practice manager is happy to immediately address any issues you may have. If you are still not satisfied with the outcome, we ask that you put your complaint in writing for us to deal with in accordance with our complaints procedure. A copy of this can be supplied if required.

Zero Tolerance

The practice has adopted and fully implements the NHS policy of 'zero-tolerance of aggression' and patients who are verbally or physically aggressive will be removed from the practice. In the event of threats to our physical safety we will summon the police immediately.

Data Protection

We have a legal obligation under the Data Protection Act to ensure that all information held and processed about you complies with the principles of this Act. Sometimes the law requires us to pass on information in certain circumstances, for example in cases of sudden death, but we will only ever pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it and it is in your best interest such that information is disclosed. Most data we disclose is anonymised ie your personal details are not divulged.

If we do need to disclose information about you to other parties, for example for medical research purposes, it is usually with your written consent. Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.