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. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Concerns
Our aim is to provide the very best care and treatment and it is important that we welcome comments and learn from people's experiences. Sometimes things might not go as well as expected and, when that happens, we need to look at what went wrong so that we can improve our service and settle the matter as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
Concerns can be raised:
Your concern will be acknowledged within two working days and we will explain the process of how your concern will be investigated and when you can expect a response (within 30 working days, unless a longer time scale is necessary, in which case we will inform you).
If you do not wish to raise your concern with the Practice, you can address your concern to Cwm Taf health Board by:
If you need help with raising a concern, please contact:
Adults
Cwm Taf Community Health Council:
- by phone on 01443 405830
- by email at enquiries@cwmtafchc.org.uk
- in writing to Cwm Taf Community Health Council, 10 maritime Offices, Woodland terrace, Maesycoed, Pontypridd CF37 1DZ
Children
Children and young people advocacy unit:
General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new law that determines how your personal data is processed and kept safe, and the legal rights that you have in relation to your own data.
The regulation applies from 25 may 2018, and will apply even after the UK leaves the EU.
What GDPR will mean for patients
The GDPR sets out the key principles about processing personal data, for staff or patients;
- Data must be processed lawfully, fairly and transparently
- It must be collected for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes
- It must be limited to what is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed
- Information must be accurate and kept up to date
- Data must be held securely
- It can only be retained for as long as is necessary for the reasons it was collected
There are als stronger rights for patients regarding the information that practices hold about them.
These include;
- Being informed about how theiur data is used
- Patients to have access to their own data
- patients can ask to have incorrect information changed
- Restrict how their data is used
- Move their patient data from one health organisation to another
- The right to object to their patient information being processed (in certain circumstances)
Fitness to Fly
It is our surgeries policy that we do not provide fitness to fly letters for any of our patients. The General Practitioners at Llynfi Surgery are not trained in Aviation Medicine and therefore not trained to state if someone is actually "fit to fly".
Guidance from the Civil Aviation Authority can be found at;
http://www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/Before-you-fly/Am-I-fit-to-fly/Guidance-for-health-professionals/Assessing-fitness-to-fly
Medication Review Policy Llynfi Surgery
- Background
The National Service Framework for Older People sets out requirements for both the frequency and content of medication review. There is also a requirement in the Quality and Outcome Framework (QOF) for GP’s to undertake medication reviews. In order to achieve these standards, healthcare professionals will need to use their skills appropriately and also ensure the involvement of patients, their carers and their families. Effective medication review is the key to efficient medicines management.
Medication review can have several different interpretations and there are also different types which vary in their quality and effectiveness.
NICE Clinical Guideline 76, ‘Medicines Adherence’ states between a third and a half of medicines that are prescribed for long-term conditions are not used as recommended. This represents a health loss for patients and an economic loss for society. Non-adherence should not be considered the patient’s problem. Rather, it usually results from a failure to fully agree the prescription with the patient in the first place and to support the patient once the medicine has been dispensed.
A medication review should therefore also aim to understand and address non-adherence
Community pharmacists now have the opportunity to carry out Medicines Use Reviews (MURs) as an Advanced Service under the community pharmacy contract. MURs are necessarily less detailed than medication reviews conducted in GP practices as community pharmacists do not currently have access to GP computer patient medication records. However, an MUR can provide a useful pointer to and review of areas of medicine taking which may be causing problems and may indicate that a full medication review would be useful.
- What is Medication Review?
“A structured, critical examination of a patient’s medicines with the objective of reaching an agreement with the patient about treatment, optimising the impact of medicines, minimising the number of medication related problems and reducing waste”.
A medication review seeks to improve or optimise the impact of treatment. The review is undertaken in a systematic way by a healthcare professional e.g. GP, pharmacist or nurse. Any changes resulting from the review are agreed with the patient. The review is documented and appropriately READ-coded in the patient’s notes. A review should normally be conducted at least annually, although the frequency may increase according to the individual patients needs.
- Why carry out a Medication Review?
Medication review provides an important opportunity to discuss medicine taking and to work towards a concordant agreement between the patient and the healthcare professional in relation to the patient’s medicines. The process of medication review is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of broader medicines management. This is reflected in the fact that medication review targets are included in both the NSF for Older People and the QOF (see below).
Llynfi Surgery Medication Review Procedure
All patients who take regular medication are expected to attend for a review of their medication at least every 12 months.
Some patients with chronic illnesses will be monitored more frequently.
Patients will be informed of their impending review either by letter from the surgery or via colour-coded medication review forms which are attached to their prescriptions from 3 months before their due date. This will be coded in their notes for information.
If patients fail to respond to the above recalls the GP reviewing the prescription may elect to reduce the amount of medication supplied e.g. weekly prescriptions until the review is performed.
Zero Tolerance Behaviour Policy
The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.
The Practice supports the government's 'Zero Tolerance' campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. The staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint. However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted. In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:
- Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
- Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
- Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
- Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
- Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
- Causing damage/stealing from the Practice's premises, staff or patients
- Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently
We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.
Removal from the practice list
A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.
Removing other members of the household
In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.
Social Media Patient Policy
There are many social media platforms that are widely used by both staff and patients: these include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. At Llynfi Surgery we have a Facebook page and a Website, which provide a range of useful information for our patient population.
Llynfi Surgery has a duty to maintain patient confidentiality and to safeguard vulnerable patients. You can help us achieve this by adhering to the code of conduct outlined in this policy.
Patients at Llynfi Surgery are expected to adhere to the following code of conduct at all times:
1. The practice requires all users of portable devices to use them in a courteous and considerate manner, respecting their fellow patients. portable devices are not to be used during consultations.
2. Patients are not permitted to disclose any patient-identifiable information about other patients, unless they have had the express consent of that patient.
3. patients must not post any material that is inaccurate, fraudulent, harassing, embarrassing, obscene, defamatory or unlawful. Any such posts on the practice Facebook page or Website will be deleted by the Practice Manager and the post reported
4. Patients are not permitted to take photographs in the waiting room or areas where other patients are present, nor are photographs of staff permitted.
5. Patients must not post comments on social media that identify staff who work at the practice.
6. Patients have an option to leave a message on our Llynfi Surgery website. This will enable the Practice Manager to respond appropriately.
7. Defamatory comments about our team are not to be shared on any social media platform, legal advice will be sought and the appropriate action taken against any patient who posts defamatory comments.
Patient Concerns
We have a separate concerns policy which patients are to use (please see guidance above). We will only respond to complaints to the practice in accordance with the practice policy. If a complaint is made on the practice Facebook page or Website page it will be deleted.
Please find a link to the Community Health Councils (CHC) advocacy guide below:
www.communityhealthcouncils.org.uk