Practice Policies
Patient's Rights and Responsibilities
As a patient you have the right to:
a) be registered with a Practice, and you will have a named doctor within the Practice
b) you may see any of the doctors within the Practice, but we suggest that it is best to go back to the same doctor who has recently seen you about any particular problem
c) receive emergency care
d) receive appropriate drugs and medicines
e) be referred for specialist or second opinion if they and GP agrees
f) see your medical records or a copy, subject to certain laws
g) know that by law, everyone working for the NHS must keep the contents of your medical records private.
With these rights come responsibilities for the public. That means being:
a) courteous to staff at all times
b) as prompt as possible for all appointments
c) responsible for cancelling appointments in adequate time
Who has Access to Patient Information
We respect your right to privacy and keep all your health
information confidential and secure. It is important that the
NHS keeps accurate and up-to-date records about your health and
treatment so that those treating you can provide the best
possible care. We have a fully computerised medical record
system which means information about your healthcare is held on
a secure server. You have the right to know what information we
hold about you. Please ask the receptionist if you wish to see
or obtain a copy of your record. If you are referred to a
hospital specialist you are also welcome to request a copy of
the referral letter. NHS Connecting for Health is currently
developing the National Care Records Service, which will create
a Summary Care Record (SCR) for each individual patient (by
2010), to be held centrally. You will be contacted by the NHS
before any information is made available outside the Practice.
You will be advised that you have the right to withdraw your
consent to information being shared. We supply fully anonymised
data to the NHS for administrative purposes. Any NHS member of
staff from outside the Practice is required to sign a
confidentiality agreement before they have access to your data.
The NHS extracts data from records to enable patient surveys to
be sent to the correct patients eg those who have been referred
for hospital care, but no specific information is available
about any illness or treatment.
Policy on Violent or Abusive Patients
We aim to treat our patients courteously at all
times and expect our patients to treat our staff in a similarly
respectful way. We take seriously any threatening, abusive or
violent behaviour against any of our staff or patients. If a
patient is violent or abusive, they will be warned to stop their
behaviour. We have a low threshold for informing the Police in
such cases, in line with the NHS policy of "Zero Tolerance". If
they persist, or the incident was serious, we may exercise our
right to take action to have them removed, immediately if
necessary, from our list of patients. A limited number of
Practices have facilities to register patients who have
previously been violent or abusive to their GP or other Primary
Care staff, and you would then have to travel to them for your
NHS care.
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