Practice Charter
We aim to provide the best possible service to our patients and hope that you will feel that we achieve that aim. The care of yourself is a partnership between yourself and the Primary Health Care Team. The success of that partnership depends on an understanding of each others needs and co-operation. Our Responsibility to you:
- You will be treated courteously
- You have a right to confidentiality
- You have the right to see your medical records subject to the limitations of the law
- You will be seen on the same day if your problem is urgent
- You will be seen by your own doctor wherever possible
- You will be informed if there will be a delay of more than 20 minutes for your appointment
- You will be referred to a consultant when your GP feels it is necessary
- You will be given the result of any test or investigation on request or at your next appointment
- Routine repeat prescriptions will be ready for collection within 48 hours of your request
- Your suggestions and comments about the services offered will be considered sympathetically and any complaint dealt with quickly
Your responsibility to us:
- Please treat all the surgery staff with the same respect - we are all just doing our job
- Please do not ask for information about anyone other than yourself
- Tell us of any change of name or address so that our records are accurate
- Only request an urgent appointment if appropriate. Home visits should only be requested if you are really too ill to attend the surgery and night visits should be for emergencies only - the Doctor-on-call will be at work as usual the next day
- Please cancel your appointment if you are unable to attend
- Please be punctual, but be prepared to wait if your own consultation is delayed by an unexpected emergency
- Please allow sufficient time for your consultants letter or the results of any tests to reach us
- You will be advised of the usual length of time to wait
- Use the tear off slip to request your repeat prescription wherever possible
- Please attend for review when asked, before your next prescription is due
- Do let us know whenever you feel we have not met our responsibility to you
- We would, of course, be pleased to hear when you feel praise is due as well.
Confidentiality
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.
Complaints
We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
Simply contact the Office Manager and she will set all the necessary wheels in motion. Further written information is available on the complaints procedure from reception. We are continually striving to improve our service. Any helpful suggestions would be much appreciated and a suggestion box is located in the waiting area.
Zero Tolerance to Violent Behaviour
The partners at Green Street Clinic re-affirm their commitment to do everything possible to protect staff, patients and visitors from unacceptable behaviour and their zero tolerance of any incident that causes alarm, hurt, damage or distress.
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.
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:
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.
Process for removal
Any incident involving violence will be reported to the practice manager, who will complete an incident report and bring to the attention of the practice partners. Each individual case will be discussed at a Practice Meeting and a majority agreement will be reached Following the agreement, the practice manager will write to the patient and explain the reasons for removal. The exception to this is if a patient has had to be reported to the police for violent behaviour towards a member of the practice staff when he/she may be immediately removed.