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.
Further information can be found on the GMC website at http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/confidentiality.asp
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 may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Complaints
All doctors and staff in the Practice hope that we offer an effective and efficient service. However, in view of the complexity of problems we deal with, we cannot guarantee that everything will always be perfect.
We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible - ideally within a matter of days or at most a few weeks. This will enable us to establish what happened more easily.
Complaints should be addressed to the practice manager or to any of the doctors in the practice. She will explain the complaint procedure to you and will make sure your concerns are dealt with promptly. It would be a great help if you can be as specific as possible about the complaint.
What we shall do
We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 working days from the date you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to give you an explanation, or offer a meeting with those involved. In investigating your complaint we aim to:
- Find out what happened and what went wrong.
- Enable you to discuss the problem with those concerned.
- Ensure you receive an apology where this is appropriate.
- Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again.
Complaining on someone else’s behalf
If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, please be aware that this Practice is bound by strict rules of medical confidentiality and we cannot divulge a patient's medical history unless we have their permission to do so. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this. A form for this purpose is available at the practice upon request.
Complaining to NHS Grampian
We hope that if you have a problem you will make use of our complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong. But this does not affect your right to approach NHS Grampian if you feel that you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the results of our investigation. You should contact:
Complaints Officer,
The Feedback Team,
NHS Grampian,
Summerfield House,
2 Eday Road,
ABERDEEN,
AB15 6RE
You can find more information about Patients Advice and Support Service (PASS) at www.cas.org.uk
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.