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.
Data Protection
Key information summary (KIS)
Out of hours data access
Unless you formally opt out, a basic summary of your health information and demographics held by the practice is available to emergency NHS out of hours services. The information provided is shown below (there is no means of partially opting out):
- CHI number
- Full name
- Address and postcode
- Date of birth
- Gender
- Current GP and most recent GP to review
- Medication allergies
- Prescriptions from the last 30 days
- Current repeat medication
Access Request
If you require information from your medical records we would ask that you submit an eConsult form and complete the administrative help page. You will need to state exactly what you require from your medical records, alternatively, you can ask at reception for an access form entitled Application to Access Medical Records or download here Access Request. Ensure that the form is fully completed and return to reception. We have one calendar month to furnish you with this information and will contact you if timescale will be longer. We will endeavour to get this information to you in a timely manner but have to ask you to recognise that this could take up to a month to prepare. There is no charge for this service, however, if you make a request for the same information at a later date we can charge you for this.
Complaints
We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
To pursue a complaint please contact the Practice Manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately.
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.