Practice Policies

Confidentiality

You can be assured that anything you discuss with any member of the surgery staff, whether doctor, nurse or receptionist, will remain confidential. Even if you are under 16, nothing will be said to anyone, including parents, other family members, care workers or teachers, without your permission. The only reason why we might want to consider passing on confidential information without your permission would be to protect either you or someone else from serious harm. In this situation, we would always try to discuss this with you first.

If you have any worries or queries about confidentiality, please ask a member of staff.

If you would like to discuss matters of a confidential nature, either with our receptionists or a member of the dispensary team, we have a side room available in reception for this purpose.

Data Protection

In order to provide the right level of care, we are required to hold personal information about you on our computer systems and in paper records to help us to look after your health needs, and your doctor is responsible for their accuracy and safe-keeping. Please help to keep your record up to date by informing us of any changes to your circumstances.

Confidentiality and Personal Information

Doctors and staff in the practice have access to your medical records to enable them to do their jobs. From time to time information may be shared with others involved in your care if it is necessary. Anyone with access to your record is properly trained in confidentiality issues and is governed by both legal and contractual duty to keep your details private.

All information about you is held securely and appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent accidental loss.

In some circumstances we may be required by law to release your details to statutory or other official bodies, for example if a court order is presented, or in the case of public health issues. In other circumstance you may be required to give written consent before information is released – such as for medical reports for insurance, solicitors etc.

To ensure your privacy, we will not disclose information over the telephone or fax unless we are sure that we are talking to you. Information will not be disclosed to family, friends or spouses unless we have prior written consent, and we do not, leave messages with others.

You have a right to see your records if you wish. Please ask at reception if you would like further details about our patient information leaflet. An appointment may be required. In some circumstances a fee may be payable.

General Practice Transparency Notice for sharing Data for Planning and Research

NHS Digital collected patient data from general practices using a service called the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES), which has operated for over 10 years and now needs to be replaced.

Patient data collected from general practice is needed to support a wide variety of research and analysis to help run and improve health and care services. Whilst the data collected in other care settings such as hospitals is valuable in understanding and improving specific services, it is the patient data in general practice that helps us to understand whether the health and care system as a whole is working for patients.

In addition to replacing what GPES already does, the General Practice Data for Planning and Research service will also help to support the planning and commissioning of health and care services, the development of health and care policy, public health monitoring and interventions (including coronavirus (COVID-19) and enable many different areas of research.

For more information about this see the GP Practice Privacy Notice for General Practice Data for Planning and Research.”

National Data Opt Out

The application of the National Data Opt-Out to information shared by NHS Digital will be considered on a case by case basis and may or may not apply depending on the specific purposes for which the data is to be used. This is because during this period of emergency, the National Data Opt-Out will not generally apply where data is used to support the coronavirus outbreak, due to the public interest and legal requirements to share information.

Further details of the national data opt out are published by

NHS.UK

NHS Digital

The deadline for health and social care organisations to evidence compliance with the national data opt policy which includes publishing that a patient has the right to opt out of their data being shared for research and planning purposes at any time, is extended until the 30 September 2021. The practices listed within this Privacy Notice are therefore compliant by virtue of the inclusion of this statement within this Privacy Notice.

Personal Data

The following IT systems are in use at the practice:

Referral Management (using NHS numbers in referrals)
Electronic Appointment Booking (the facility to book routine appointments online and, similarly, to cancel appointments
Online booking of repeat prescriptions
Summary Care Record (uploading details of your current medication and allergies to the national “spine” so that these are available for doctors involved in your care elsewhere)
GP to GP transfers (the electronic transfer of records from practice to practice when you re-register
Patient Access to records (the facility to view your medical records online).

If you are not already registered for online access and would like to be please complete our online form.

If you would like access to your medical records enabled or would like to opt out of the local or national summary care record, please contact reception.

IT Policy

This practice is committed to preserving, as far as is practical, the security of data used by our information systems. This means that we will take all reasonable actions to;

Maintain the Confidentiality of all data within the practice by:

Ensuring that only authorised persons can gain access to our systems
Not disclosing information to anyone who has no right to see it

Maintain the integrity of all data within the practice by:

Taking care over input
Ensuring that all changes are reported and monitored
Checking that the correct record is on the screen before updating
Reporting all apparent errors and ensuring that they are resolved

Maintain the availability of all data by:

Ensuring that all equipment is protected from intruders
Ensuring that backups are taken at regular, predetermined intervals
Ensuring that contingency is provided for possible failure or equipment theft and that any such contingency plans are tested and kept up to date

Additionally we will take all reasonable measures to comply with our legal responsibilities under:

Summary Care Record

Your patient record is held securely and confidentially on the electronic system at your GP practice. If you require treatment in another NHS healthcare setting such as an Emergency Department or Minor Injury Unit, those treating you would be better able to give you appropriate care if some of the information from the GP practice were available to them.

This information can now be shared electronically via: The Summary Care Record, used nationally across England

The information will be used only by authorised health care professionals directly involved in your care. Your permission will be asked before the information is accessed, unless the clinician is unable to ask you and there is a clinical reason for access.

If you would like to opt out, please ask reception for our opt out form.

A parent or guardian can request to opt out children under 16 but ultimately it is the GP’s decision whether to create the records or not, because of their duty of care to the child. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16 and feel that they are able to understand, then you should make this information available to them.

Who Has Access?

Across all health care settings, including urgent care, community care and outpatient departments in England.

Information Source

GP record

Content

Your current medications
Any allergies you have
Any bad reactions you have had to medicines
Additional information (upon request to your GP)

Zero Tolerance

The Practice staff shall always show due respect and courtesy when dealing with patients and their representatives. We respectfully request that patients and their representatives do the same when dealing with members of the practice team.

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.

No form of aggression (whether verbal or physical in nature) will be tolerated – any instances of such behaviour on the practice premises may result in the perpetrator being reported to the Police and removed from the practice’s List of Registered Patients.

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.

Practice Finances

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice. The required disclosure is shown below.

Before income tax and National Insurance Contributions, GP’s at Dr Allan & Partners received £89,799 per whole time equivalent (WTE) for the year ended March 31st 2017 (the last period for which annual accounts have been prepared).

However, it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earning is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice, and should not be used to form any judgment about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.