Our responsibility to you

We are committed to give you the best service possible.

People involved in your care will give you their name and ensure that you know how to contact them. The surgery is well signposted and displays names on surgery doors.

An appointment system is operated in this practice. You will be given a time at which the doctor or nurse hopes to be able to see you. You should not have to wait more than 30 minutes in the waiting room for any routine appointment without receiving an explanation for the delay.

You will have access to a doctor rapidly in case of emergency. We will arrange a home visit as appropriate for those who are too ill or infirm to be brought to the surgery.

We will try to answer the telephone promptly and to ensure that there are sufficient staff available to do this. Please be aware that there are difficult times, i.e. Monday mornings when the telephone is extremely busy.

Test results will only be given to the patient. Due to confidentiality, we do not give results to anyone else.

Patients will be treated as individuals and partners in their healthcare, irrespective of their ethnic or religious and cultural beliefs.

Your personal health information will be held in confidence and will not be disclosed to a third party without your prior consent unless when in exceptional circumstances this is felt to be in the public interest.

Your medical history is kept in paper and will be recorded on our practice computer system which may only be accessed by authorised members of our team. There are times when we have to pass information about you to other people such as:

• Hospitals
• Social Services
• Our Primary Care Trust
• Strategic Health Authority

This is always done confidentially or by removing your identifying details when they are not essential. If you require a copy of your medical notes we will provide one.  Please ask our reception team. The practice is accredited under the Information Governance Statement of Compliance.

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to maintain the highest level of confidentiality about patient information, including those patients under 16.

Your responsibility to us

Help us to know you.

• Please let us know if you change your name, address, or home or mobile telephone number.
• Please do everything you can to keep an appointment. Tell us as soon as possible if you cannot.
• We need help too. Please ask for home visits by the doctor only when the patient is too ill to come to the surgery.
• Please keep your telephone call brief, and avoid calling during the peak morning time for non-urgent matters.
• Please do not telephone reception regarding your medication.
• Test results take time to reach us. Do not ring before you have been asked to do so, and leave this type of call until after 14:00.
• We ask you to be polite to all our staff. We will where appropriate issue you with a warning if in our opinion your conduct is unacceptable, and if necessary ask for you to be removed from our practice and allocated to another practice. If you are abusive, offensive or violent to any of our staff, other patients or our premises, or we consider that there has been irretrievable breakdown in the doctor/Patient relationship we will ask for your removal and allocation to another practice without issuing a warning.
• Please read our practice booklet, available at reception, and use it as a guide to obtaining the best service from our practice.
• Remember that you are responsible for your own health and the health of your children. We will give you our professional help and advice. Please act upon it.