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.
Access to Records
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Practice Privacy Notice
How we use your personal information
Our Privacy Notice has been written to inform our patients about how we collect their personal information and what we do with it. It answers the following questions you might have.
Please be aware that this notice may be subject to change.
To view or download our Privacy Notice please Click Here
To view or download our Covid-19 Privacy Notice please Click Here
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.
Chaperone Policy
We will always respect your privacy, dignity and your religious and cultural beliefs particularly when intimate examinations are advisable - these will only be carried out with your express agreement and you will be offered a chaperone to attend the examination if you so wish.
You may also request a chaperone when making the appointment or on arrival at the surgery (please let the receptionist know) or at any time during the consultation.
Missed Appointments policy
Appointments are in high demand with doctors and nurses. Currently we lose approximately 25 appointments per week because patients do not turn up and do not let us know. This is equivalent of 4 hours of doctors/nurses time.
We do understand that due to circumstances beyond a patient’s control that you are sometimes unable to attend. However, we ask patients to let us know as soon as possible so we can reallocate that appointment to another patient. This is possible even at very short notice so it is important that you telephone the practice to cancel as soon as you can. If you are registered for our on-line booking appointments system, you can also cancel your appointment using this system.
We can help by sending you a text reminder of your appointment 24 hours in advance – please ensure we have your correct mobile number if you wish to use this service.
Due to the increasing numbers of patients failing to cancel appointments, we have implemented the following policy:
If a patient fails to attend a pre-booked appointment on more than one occasion in the previous six months, an informal warning letter will be sent to the patient, advising them that a further occurrence could risk removal from the Practice.
If the patient does not attend again i.e. a total of three occasions in a twelve month period, we reserve the right to remove that patient from our list. Each case will be discussed at a Partners’ Meeting and we will write again to patients in these circumstances to let them know the outcome of these discussions.