Codes Of Practice

Discrimination Policy

Please note that no discrimination will be made with regard to race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, appearance or on grounds of disability or medical condition.

Patient Confidentiality

All our staff are bound by a strict confidentiality policy. This means we are unable to give out medical information to relatives or third parties (except the parents of children under 16) unless we receive written consent from the patient. Your personal health information may be shared with other NHS Organisations for audit purposes and in this instance only anonymised unidentifiable data will be used. If you do not wish your health information to be shared with other NHS organisations, please inform the surgery, preferably in writing.

Data Protection Act

The Practice complies with the legal obligations of the Data Protection Act 2018 (the ‘2018 Act’) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’), which entitles you to know what information we hold about you. Please contact the Practice Manager if you would like to see your records.

Patient Behaviour

We ask you to treat the practice team with courtesy and respect. Physical or verbal abuse in the surgery will not be tolerated under any circumstances – you will be asked to leave the premises and the police will be called.

We reserve the right to remove a patient from the practice list if they are aggressive or abusive to any member of the team.

Complaints & Comments

We are proud of our practice team. Nonetheless, we recognise that problems may occasionally arise with the services we provide. Should you wish to make a complaint the following procedure will apply:

Please contact the Practice Manager by letter or telephone on 01296 423797. We will respond to your complaint in the following way:

  • We will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days
  • We will give a written explanation within 10 working days
  • We will offer you the opportunity to discuss your complaint with our Practice Manager
  • If your complaint involves a doctor, we will offer you the opportunity to discuss the matter with the doctor involved, or with the doctor responsible for dealing with complaints (the senior partner)
  • If, despite our efforts, you feel that your complaint has not been dealt with adequately, we will advise you on how to pursue matters further
  • We welcome comments, suggestions and enquiries – these should be addressed to the Practice Manager, who will be happy to try and help.

Patient Responsibilities

We would like to request that all patients:

  • Use the emergency service only in a genuine emergency
  • Ask for a home visit only when the patient is unable to attend the surgery through illness or infirmity
  • Always request repeat medication in writing or via Patient Access and allow us 48 hours to prepare the prescription
  • Do not contact the surgery for results of tests for 7 days unless requested by the doctor
  • Treat all staff with courtesy and respect at all times
  • Keep your appointments, be punctual, and let us know as early as possible if your are unable to attend
  • An appointment is for one person only
  • Let us know when you change your name, address and telephone number
  • Tell us about any complaints or misunderstanding as soon as possible to allow us to deal with them
  • Let us know when we have done well