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 Practioners 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.
Patients Rights and Responsibilities
You will be treated with respect and as a partner in your care. Being a partner means you have responsibilities too.
We will:
- Ensure our patients have 24 hour access to medical advice
- Aim for you to have access to a suitably qualified medical professional in an urgent case on 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 your medical care
- Advise and inform you of the steps you can take to promote good health and a healthy lifestyle.
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 correct telephone number, even if it is ex-directory.
As patients you are responsible for your own health and that of any dependents. 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.
Complaints
We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out this way, and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know, in writing as soon as possible, ideally within a matter of days or at most a few weeks, as this will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do this please let us have details of your complain
- Within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem; or
- Within 6 month of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident
Complaints should be made in writing to Mrs Michelle Turnbull, Practice Manager. You may ask for an appointment with Mrs Turnbull, following receipt of your letter of complaint, in order to discuss your concerns. She will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be of great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.
Complaints Leaflet
What We Shall Do
We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 20 working days of the date of receipt of your letter of complaint. We shall then be in a position to give you an explanation, or offer a meeting with those involved. In investigating your complaint we shall aim to:-
- Find out what happened and what went wrong
- Enable you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
- Ensure you received an apology where this is appropriate
- Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again
Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else
Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A Mandate signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable because of illness of providing this.
We hope that if you have a problem you will make use of our practice complaints procedure. We believe that this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. This does not affect your right to approach the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman, if you feel that you cannot raise your complaint with us, or if you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.
If You Are Still Not Satisfied
If you are still dissatisfied after the NHS complaints procedure has been exhausted, you can ask the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman to investigate your case. The Ombudsman is completely independent of both the NHS and Government. The Ombudsman is not obliged to investigate every complaint put to her, and generally she will not look into matters which have not first been through the NHS complaints procedure, or a case which is being dealt with by the courts. If you want advice on whether to ask her to investigate, you can write to or telephone their office -
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman,
Bridgeside House
99 McDonald Road
Edinburgh EH7 4NS
Tel: 08003777330
.
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.
DIAZEPAM
We would advise that if you are currently taking Diazepam, it is practice policy to provide you with a prescription for a reducing dose over a 4 week period until you are no longer taking this medication. WE DO NOT ISSUE LONG TERM PRESCRIPTIONS FOR DIAZEPAM