Commitments From The Practice

• To treat all with courtesy and respect.
• You will have the choice to be seen by a male or female doctor for routine appointments (if available).
• You will have appropriate treatment prescribed and clearly explained.
• You will be assessed by a clinician the same day if you have a medically urgent complaint, though you may not be able to see your usual doctor in some circumstances.
• You will be referred to a consultant when your GP feels it necessary.
• All referrals will usually be sent within 2 working days unless an internal second opinion is sought first.
• You can have access your Health Records via the online service once you have shown proof of identity.
• You will be offered appropriate advice by the Practice Team regarding keeping healthy
• 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.
• All children will be offered Immunisations in line with NHS guidelines.
• We recognise your need to discuss your concerns in private and will ensure privacy for consultations and confidentiality at all times.
• You will have the option of a trained chaperone should you require one. Your chaperone will always be of your gender.
• We will endeavor to provide appropriate arrangements for patients with special circumstances, needs or communication difficulties. If this is the case please discuss this with your clinician or the practice team.
• In the same way as patients can choose their doctor, 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.
• Your records, both written and computerised, will be kept secure and confidential at all times, in line with data protection guidelines, GDPR and NHS confidentiality policy.
• Waiting times at the surgery are usually kept to a minimum, but delays are sometime unavoidable and you will be advised if there is a delay of more than 10-15 minutes, and you will be offered the choice of waiting or making an alternative appointment.
• Non-NHS work e.g. insurance forms, will not be treated as a priority over NHS medical care, but the Practice will complete this work within statutory timelines.

Rights and Responsibilities of Patients

• You will treat practice staff with courtesy and respect.
• You will be a ‘patient’ patient.
• You will respect that we are working very hard to provide the best service we can for all our patients. Any violent, aggressive or abusive behaviour may lead to being removed from the practice list, and in extreme cases could lead to police involvement.
• You will notify us as soon as possible you are unable to keep an appointment as this allows other patients to be seen and keeps waiting times down.You will understand that our staff are limited in the information they can provide due to data protection. We can only divulge private information related to a patient either with their written consent or a legal mandate such as a power of attorney
• You will ring the practice after 10:30 if you have a non-urgent enquiry.
• You will be on time for your appointments and notify us as soon as possible if you need to cancel an appointment.
• Your clinician may not be able to see you if you are late, and persistent missed appointments may lead to being removed from the practice list.
• You will avoid delays by allowing at least 2 full working days when requesting a repeat prescription; repeat prescriptions will not be taken over the telephone (requests can be made by letter, email, via online request service or by visiting the practice)
• You will ring the practice after 10.30 if you have a non-urgent enquiry.
• There is no need for you to ring the practice for test results; most results are normal and, therefore we will contact you if a doctor has identified an abnormality. Alternatively you can access all your test results via the NHS App or SystmOnline; just ask reception for access to online services.
• You will inform us if you change address or telephone number – we may need to contact you urgently. You will also ask for family members at the same address to do the same
• You will make allowances when waiting in the surgery for the fact that emergency cases will have to be given priority.
• You will understand that there is a charge for non-NHS work e.g. holiday cancellation letters, insurance forms, and they will take up to six weeks to process as NHS work will need to take priority.