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Patient Charter

 

Commitments from the Practice

Rights & Responsibilities of Patients

You will be treated with courtesy & respectYou will treat practice staff with a courtesy and respect
You will have the choice to be seen by a male or female doctor for routine appointments wherever possible.Although we aim to offer you a choice of clinicians, and aim to offer continuity of care, you will accept that this is not always possible (holidays/sickness/full sessions) and you will therefore be willing to see any clinician at the practice

We endeavour to answer all telephone calls to the surgery as soon as possible, and to deal with patients arriving in Practice as soon as possible

 

You will be a ‘patient’ patient and understand that we endeavor to offer the very best access to our services as quickly as we are able to

You will be offered an appointment as we do not offer a walk-in service. 

 

 

 

You will be seen the same day if you have a medically urgent complaint, though you may not be able to see the doctor of your choice and it may be at either surgery.

You will notify us as soon as possible if you are unable to keep an appointment as this allows other patients to be seen and keeps waiting times down.

 

You will be on time for your appointments and notify us as soon as possible if you need to cancel an appointment; persistent missed appointments may lead to being removed from the practice list

 

Waiting times at the surgery are usually kept to a minimum, but delays are sometimes unavoidable and you will be advised if the wait is likely to be 15 minutes or more.  In exceptional circumstances, you will be offered the choice of waiting or making an alternative appointment.

You will make allowances when waiting in the surgery for the fact that some consultations may take longer than the allotted time in certain circumstances.

 

You will accept the offer of a different appointment if you are unable to wait

 

You will have appropriate treatment prescribed and clearly explained 

 

You will be offered appropriate advice by the Practice Team regarding keeping healthy

You will respect that we are working very hard to provide the best service we can for all our patients, and any violent, aggressive or abusive behaviour may lead to being removed from the practice list, and/or police involvement

You will be visited at home if the doctor feels that this is clinically necessary.

 

You may receive telephone advice from the GP if appropriate

You will only request a home visit if you, or the patient you are representing, are genuinely unable to come to the practice e.g. housebound, physically incapacitated.

 

If a visit is required please ring before 10am whenever possible

You may telephone to request advice from a clinician.  You will need to give the receptionist as much detail about your query as possible to allow it to be given to the most appropriate person to deal with it. Practice will endeavor to deal with this query on the same day.

 

 

You will ring the practice if you have a non-medical enquiry.

 

You may be asked to attend surgery to see a clinician if this is felt to be the best approach to the query.

You will be able to telephone the Practice for the results of any tests that have been performed.  The requestor will guide you as to how long the result may take to come back to Practice.

 

You will wait for the correct time frame before contacting the Practice.

 

You will ring for results after 2.00 pm

You will be referred to a consultant when your GP feels it necessary.

 

You will be given your referral paperwork within three working days from the date the doctor has referred

 

You will ensure that your contact details held on our system are correct and let us know as soon as possible of any changes.

You will be able to order your repeat medication through our on-line facility, NHS APP, by post or through your local pharmacy. 

 

Requests must be in writing please.

 

You will be responsible for ensuring that you order your medication in a timely fashion ensuring you do not run out.

 

We require 48 hrs notice for prescriptions

 

 

You will allow 2 full working days when requesting a repeat prescription; if occasionally you have been unable to do so, you will appreciate that we will endeavour to fulfill your request, but that this may not always be possible.

 

 

You will be able to make suggestions to improve the practice and services we provide through feedback to the management team and via our Friends and Family Feed-back form

 

You will be able to see the results of the Friends and Family Survey on a monthly basis on our website.

Your complaints will be investigated thoroughly and promptly as per NHS complaints procedure.  We endeavour to resolve complaints verbally but where a complaint requires investigation we will write to you with the outcome.

 

You will be expected to judge our response in a fair and measured way accepting that Practice will use all complaints to recognise and put into practice any improvements identified.

We recognise your need to discuss your concerns in private and will endeavour to ensure privacy for consultations and confidentiality at all times. 

 

You will understand that you may occasionally need to request a more private    arrangement at  reception
We operate an open door policy when delivering our influenza vaccines to patients.  This means there will be other patients in the vicinity who will also be receiving a flu vaccine.You will not ask any medical question whilst these clinics take place to preserve your confidentiality.

If you have any special needs or difficulties please discuss them with the doctor or other member of staff and we will do our best to put in place arrangements to identify and deal with them appropriately

 

You will ensure that you make us aware of any problem that may need some form of individual recognition

In the same way as patients can choose their doctor if available, the doctors reserve the right to accept or remove a patient from their list. This may happen if a patient is unable to work cooperatively with the Practice 

 

 

You will not expect a prescription every time you visit your GP - good advice is often the best medicine 

 

 

 

Your records, both written and computerised, will be kept secure and confidential at all times, in line with data protection guidelines, and NHS confidentiality policy 

 

You will inform us if you change address or telephone number – we may need to contact you urgently

 

Non-NHS work e.g. insurance forms, letters etc. will not be treated as a priority over NHS medical care.You will understand that there is a charge for non-NHS work e.g. holiday cancellation forms, insurance forms, and they will take up to four weeks to process as NHS work will always take priority
We have many patients and therefore systems have been put in place to ensure the smooth running of the practice and the safety of all of our patients.You will recognise that some of these systems may not suit everybody and accept that they form part of our relationship.  Practice will always endeavour to discuss any difficulty that may be caused to a patient by our systems, but we would expect that once explained, and if we are unable to make a change, this will be accepted