Zero Tolerance

The practice fully supports the NHS Zero Tolerance Policy. The aim of this policy is to tackle the increasing problem of violence against staff working in the NHS and ensures that doctors and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused.

We 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. We ask you to treat your doctors and their staff courteously and act reasonably.

All incidents will be followed up and you will be sent a single formal warning. Should another incident occur this may impact on doctor and patient relationship and result in your removal from our practice list.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or verbal abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police will be contacted if an incident is taking place and the patient is posing a threat to staff or other patients.

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 Surgery, 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.

Summary Care Records

About your Summary Care Record

Your Summary Care Record contains important information about any medicines you are taking, any allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines that you have previously experienced.

Allowing authorised healthcare staff to have access to this information will improve decision making by doctors and other healthcare professionals and has prevented mistakes being made when patients are being cared for in an emergency or when their GP practice is closed.

Your Summary Care Record also includes your name, address, date of birth and your unique NHS Number to help identify you correctly.

You may want to add other details about your care to your Summary Care Record. This will only happen if both you and your GP agree to do this. You should discuss your wishes with your GP practice.

Healthcare staff will have access to this information, so that they can provide safer care, whenever or wherever you need it, anywhere in England.

FAQs

Who can see my Summary Care Record?

Healthcare staff who have access to your Summary Care Record:

  • need to be directly involved in caring for you
  • need to have an NHS Smartcard with a chip and passcode
  • will only see the information they need to do their job and
  • will have their details recorded every time they look at your record

Healthcare staff will ask for your permission every time they need to look at your Summary Care Record. If they cannot ask you (for example if you are unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate), healthcare staff may look at your record without asking you, because they consider that this is in your best interest.

If they have to do this, this decision will be recorded and checked to ensure that the access was appropriate.

What are my choices?

You have the choice of what information you would like to share and with whom. Authorised healthcare staff can only view your SCR with your permission. The information shared will solely be used for the benefit of your care.

Your options are outlined below:

  • Express consent for medication, allergies and adverse reactions only. You wish to share information about medication, allergies and adverse reactions only.
  • Express consent for medication, allergies, adverse reactions and additional information. You wish to share information about medication, allergies and adverse reactions and further medical information that includes: Your significant illnesses and health problems, operations and vaccinations you have had in the past, how you would like to be treated (such as where you would prefer to receive care), what support you might need and who should be contacted for more information about you.
  • Express dissent for Summary Care Record (opt out). Select this option, if you DO NOT want any information shared with other healthcare professionals involved in your care.

Please note that it is not compulsory for you to complete a consent form. If you choose not to complete a form, a Summary Care Record containing information about your medication, allergies and adverse reactions and additional further medical information will be created for you.

If you choose to opt out of having a Summary Care Record and do not want a SCR, you need to let your GP practice know by filling in an opt-out form.

If you are unsure if you have already opted out, you should talk to the staff the practice. You can change your mind at any time by simply informing your GP practice and either filling in an opt-out form or asking your GP practice to create a Summary Care Record for you.

Children and the Summary Care Record

If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16, you should make this information available to them and support the child to come to a decision as to whether to have a Summary Care Record or not.

If you believe that your child should opt-out of having a Summary Care Record, we strongly recommend that you discuss this with your child’s GP. This will allow your child’s GP to highlight the consequences of opting-out, prior to you finalising your decision.

Where can I get more information?

For more information about Summary Care Records you can

  • talk to the staff at your GP practice
  • phone the Health and Social Care Information Centre on 0300 303 5678

Read the Summary Care Record patient information.

Privacy Notice

We understand how important it is to keep your personal information safe and secure and we take this very seriously. We have taken steps to make sure your personal information is looked after in the best possible way and we review this regularly.

Please read our Privacy Notice carefully, as it contains important information about how we use the personal and healthcare information we collect on your behalf.

Named GP

We have allocated a Named Accountable GP for all of our registered patients. If you do not know who your named GP is, please ask a member of our reception team. Unfortunately, we are unable to notify patients in writing of any changes of GP due to the costs involved.

Infection Control Statement

We aim to keep our surgery clean and tidy and offer a safe environment to our patients and staff and endeavour to keep it clean and well maintained at all times.

Our GPs and nursing staff follow our Infection Control Policy to ensure the care we deliver and the equipment we use is safe.

We take additional measures to ensure we maintain the highest standards:

  • Carry out an annual infection control audit to make sure our infection control procedures are working.
  • Provide annual staff updates and training on cleanliness and infection control
  • Review our policies and procedures to make sure they are adequate and meet national guidance.
  • Maintain the premises and equipment to a high standard within the available financial resources and ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to reduce or remove all infection risk.
  • Use washable or disposable materials for items such as couch rolls, modesty curtains, floor coverings, towels etc., and ensure that these are laundered, cleaned or changed frequently to minimise risk of infection.
  • Make Alcohol Hand Rub Gel available throughout the building

GP Earnings

 

All GP Practices are required to declare mean earnings (i.e. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs working in the practice of Wallace House Surgery in the last financial year was £51,717 before tax and National Insurance.

This is for 4 full time GPs, 5 part time GPs and 1 locum GP who worked in the practice for more than six months.

Confidentiality

The practice complies with the Data Protection Act.  All information about patients is confidential: from the most sensitive diagnosis, to the fact of having visited the surgery or being registered at the Practice. All patients can expect that their personal information will not be disclosed without their permission except in the most exceptional of circumstances, when somebody is at grave risk of serious harm.

All members of the primary health care team (from reception to doctors) in the course of their duties will have access to your medical records. They all adhere to the highest standards of maintaining confidentiality.

As our reception area is a little public, if you wish to discuss something of a confidential nature please mention it to one of the receptionists who will make arrangements for you to have the necessary privacy.

Under 16s

The duty of confidentiality owed to a person under 16 is as great as the duty owed to any other person. Young people aged under 16 years can choose to see health professionals, without informing their parents or carers. If a GP considers that the young person is competent to make decisions about their health, then the GP can give advice, prescribe and treat the young person without seeking further consent.

However, in terms of good practice, health professionals will encourage young people to discuss issues with a parent or carer. As with older people, sometimes the law requires us to report information to appropriate authorities in order to protect young people or members of the public.

Useful Websites

Statement of Intent

New contractual requirements came into force from 1 April 2014 requiring that GP Practices should make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments:

  • Summary Care Record (SCR)
  • GP to GP Record Transfers
  • Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
  • Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes

The same contractual obligations require that we have a statement of intent regarding these developments in place and published by 30 September 2014.

Please find below details of the practices stance with regards to these points.

Summary Care Record (SCR)

NHS England require practices to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis, to the summary care record (SCR) or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.

Having your Summary Care Record (SCR) available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.

Of course, if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record. You can do this via the opt out form.
The practice confirms that your SCR is automatically updated on at least a daily basis to ensure that your information is as up to date as it can possibly be.

GP to GP Record Transfers

NHS England require practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers (not for temporary registration).
It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times. If you leave your GP and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England. It can take your paper records up to two weeks to reach your new surgery.

With GP to GP record transfers your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.

The practice confirms that GP to GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.

Patient Online Access to Their GP Record

NHS England require practices to promote and offer the facility to enable patients online access to appointments, prescriptions, allergies and adverse reactions or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.

We currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments and also for ordering your repeat prescriptions and viewing a summary of your medical records online. If you do not already have a username and password for this system – please register your interest with our reception staff.

Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes

It is already a requirement of the Health and Social Care Act that practices must meet the reasonable data requirements of commissioners and other health and social care organisations through appropriate and safe data sharing for secondary uses, as specified in the technical specification for care data.

At our practice we have specific arrangements in place to allow patients to “opt out” of care.data which allows for the removal of data from the practice. Please see the page about care data on our website

The Practice confirm these arrangements are in place and that we undertake annual training and audits to ensure that all our data is handled correctly and safely via the Information Governance Toolkit.