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 and are free of charge. However, if the request is unfounded or excessive, there may be an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Complaints process
Patients are encouraged to give feedback to the Practice.
To run a happy successful Practice we need feedback from our patients. If you do have any comments, suggestions or complaints, let us know.
If you have a concern or complaint about the service you have received about the Clinicians or any of the staff working at the surgery, please let us know.
If we cannot resolve your concern informally and you wish to raise a formal complaint, please submit in writing for the attention of the Practice Manager.
The complainant will receive a written or verbal acknowledgement within 3 working days advising them of the timescale to resolve.
The Practice will then provide a written response to the patient as soon as reasonable practicable ensuring that the patient is kept up-to-date with progress as appropriate.
Where a response is not possible within 25 working days the Practice will provide an update report to the patient with an estimate of timescales.
When acknowledging the complaint, we will offer to discuss the complaint, with the complainant, at a time to suit them. We will advise the manner in which the complaint will be investigated and the likely timescale for this investigation and when the complainant is likely to receive a response
As soon as possible after completion of the investigation, the complainant will be sent a written response. The response will include an explanation of how the complaint has been considered, conclusions reached and how they may affect the complainant. It will confirm any actions that need to be taken as a consequence of the complaint.
If local resolution has not been reached, it will identify the right to take the complaint to the Health Service Ombudsman.
The period for making a complaint is normally:
12 months from the date the complaint occurred.
After 1 July 2023 if you want to make a complaint about primary care services to the commissioner you will now contact NHS North East London integrated care board instead of NHS England.
You can do this by:
Telephone: 020 8221 5750
E-mail: nelondonicb.complaints@nhs.net
Writing to us at:
Complaints Department
NHS North East London
4th Floor – Unex Tower
5 Station Street
London E15 1DA
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.