Access to Medical Records
The practice is registered and complies with the General Data Protection Regulations and the Data Protection Act 2018 /1998. Any request for access to notes by a patient, patient’s representative or outside body will be dealt with in accordance with the Act. Please contact the Practice Manager for further information.
Confidentiality and Records
We ask for information about yourself so that you can receive the best possible attention. We keep this information, together with details of your care, to ensure your doctor or nurse has accurate and up-to-date information to assess your needs and decide on the most appropriate treatment and care. Your records are also available in case:
- You see another doctor or need referral to a specialist or another healthcare professional;
- To ensure there is good basis for looking back and checking on the type and quality of care you have received;
- To ensure concerns can be properly investigated if you need to complain.
Your doctors, their staff and everyone else working for the NHS have a legal duty to maintain the highest level of confidentiality about patient information. We will not disclose information about you to third parties without your permission unless required to do so by law, for example notification of births, or in exceptional circumstances, for example when the health and safety of others is at risk. Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.
We will only give your relatives, friends and carers information if you want us to. The surgery is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Important information about your medical records
This practice is linked to other NHS Organisations and shares data electronically through the Summary Care Record.
Your Summary Care Record includes your name, address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help identify you correctly. It will contain important information about any medicines you are taking, allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines that you have had. Giving healthcare staff access to this information can prevent mistakes being made when caring for you in an emergency or when your GP practice is closed.
Named GP
Named GP – All patients are allocated a named GP (this is your registered GP). You are still welcome to book with any GP of your choice but your registered GP is responsible for your overall care. Should you wish to know who this is, please ask at reception.
Comments and Complaints
The practice is always pleased to receive constructive comments and compliments and a suggestion box is provided in the waiting room for this purpose.
If you have any concern or complaint about the service you have received from the surgery please bring this to the attention of the Practice Manager who will be pleased to discuss this with you at the earliest opportunity. The practice deals with complaints in line with the NHS complaints procedure, which advocates local resolution where possible.
The practice complaints procedure is available from reception.
Alternatively you can download the procedure and a complaints form by opening these PDF’s:
Complaints Information for Patients
Complaint Form
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.