Suggestions and Comments

We know that despite our best efforts, there may be occasions when you don’t feel happy with some aspect of our service. Should you ever wish to make a complaint, please notify the Practice Manager, Mrs Sharon Morgan. She can be contacted on the telephone, via reception, or in writing. We will respond to your written complaints within 10 working days. Equally, if you are particularly pleased with any aspect of our care or services, you can contact her to let her know. It is always very encouraging for the staff involved to hear words of praise!

For details of our complaints procedure see our complaints brochure.

The complaints form can be printed, completed and brought into the surgery.

Training

We have 2 full-time doctors and 2 part-time doctors but we are also a training practice, which means we are involved in the ongoing training of GP registrars.

Registrars are fully qualified doctors with considerable medical experience, who are gaining further experience of family medicine before finding their own practice.

We are also fully committed to the continued training of medical students and will from time to time have students in the surgery.

We are also pleased to welcome Year 2 Medical Students Alistair Ward and Jessica Wood and Year 4 Medical Student Jack Pickard.

Your Rights and Responsibilities

If you make an appointment and fail to keep it, you are depriving another patient of an opportunity to see a doctor or nurse. If for any reason you will be unable to make an appointment, please let the surgery know as soon as possible beforehand, so that we can give it to someone else.

The NHS operates a Zero Tolerance Policy with regard to violence and abuse. Respect and dignity are the right of everyone. If you are rude or aggressive to our staff or other patients, we will warn you that your behaviour is unacceptable and, if necessary, you will be asked to leave the surgery and may be taken off our list. If this is the case we will write to you with details of how to register with another GP.

Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the surgery.

Confidentiality

All information about patients is confidential, from the most sensitive diagnosis, to the fact that a patient has visited the surgery or is registered with the practice. The duty of confidentiality owed to a person under the age of 16 years is as great as the duty to any other person.

For the effective functioning of a multi-disciplinary team it is often necessary that information about you is shared between members of the practice and local healthcare team. On such occasions you will be informed of the sharing of information and your consent obtained. Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential; anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential The only circumstances where your information may be shared without your consent are:

• When it is a statutory requirement or in response to a court order 
• When the public interest in passing the information on outweighs the duty of confidence to the patient.

A copy of the practice confidentiality agreement is available in the surgery, and further information can be obtained from the practice manager.

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Freedom of Information

The ICO has published a new Model Publication Scheme that all public authorities are required to adopt by 1st January 2009.

FOI Publication Scheme ver 3