The care of your health is a partnership between yourself and the Primary Health Care Team. The success of the partnership depends on an understanding of each others needs and co-operation between us.

Our responsibility to you:

• You will be greeted courteously.
• You have right to confidentiality.
• We will respect our patients’ privacy and confidentiality at all times.
•  You have a right to see your medical records subject to limitations of the law.
• You will receive attention the same day if your problem is urgent.
• You will be seen by your preferred doctor whenever possible.
• You will be informed if there will be a delay for your appointment.
• You will be referred to a consultant when your doctor thinks it necessary.
• You will be given the result of any test as it becomes available.
• Your repeat prescription will be ready for collection within 48 hours (2 working days) of your request.
• Your suggestions and comments about the services offered will be considered sympathetically and any complaint dealt with quickly.

Your responsibility to us:

• Please treat our staff in courteous manner, they are here to help and remember they are working under doctors’ orders.
• Violent or abusive behaviour will not be tolerated and could lead to you being removed from the practice list.
• Do not ask for information about anyone other than yourself.
• Tell us of any change of name or address so that records are accurate. If you are waiting to be seen at the hospital please let them know too.
• Only request an urgent appointment if appropriate.
• Home visits should only be requested if you are really too ill to attend surgery, and night visits should be for emergencies only.
• Please cancel your appointment if you are unable to attend. Someone else could use your appointment.
• Please be punctual, but be prepared to wait if your own consultation is delayed by unexpected circumstances.
• Please allow sufficient time for your consultant’s letter or the result of any tests to reach us.
• Use the tear off slip to order your repeat prescriptions whenever possible.
• Please attend for review when asked, before your next prescription is due.
• Do let us know whenever you feel we have not met our responsibility to you. We would, of course, be pleased to hear when you feel praise is due as well.

Due to an increase in the number of wasted appointments through patients failing to attend without informing the surgary it has become necessary to implement the following policy:

If you fail to attend for 3 consecutive appointments you will be sent a warning letter. if you continue in failing to attend you may be removed from the practice list and have to find an alternative doctor.

If you cannot attend for your appointments for any reason please let us know as soon as possible, we can then offer the appointment to someone else.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Our staff come to work to care for others, and it is important for all members of the public and our staff to be treated with respect.

We aim to treat our patients courteously at all times and expect our patients to treat our staff in a similarly respectful way. We take seriously any threatening, abusive or violent behaviour against any of our staff or patients.

If a patient is violent or abusive, they will be asked to stop. If they persist, we may exercise our right to take action to have them removed, immediately if necessary, from our list of patients.

In line with the rest of the NHS, and to ensure this is fully observed we have a Zero Tolerance policy, whereby aggressive or violent behaviour towards our staff will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Anyone giving verbal abuse to members of staff will be sent a letter from the Practice stating that this behaviour will not be tolerated and may result in removal from the Practice Patient list. There will be no appeal process.

Any incident of threatening, abusive or violent behaviour may be reported to the local Police Service as part of the Zero Tolerance campaign.

We hope that you will understand an welcome this policy which is in place for the best interests of our hard working staff as all the patients that we serve.

We provide a confidential service to all our patients, including under 16s.

All information held by this practice is strictly confidential: from the most sensitive diagnosis, to the fact of having visited the surgery or being registered at the practice. Reception staff have particular problems when faced with members of the public who want information about family members or friends. This means that you can tell others about a visit to the surgery, but we won’t. The only reason we might have to consider passing on confidential information without your permission, would be to protect you or someone else from very serious harm. We would always try to discuss this with you first.

If you have any worries about confidentiality please feel free to ask a member of staff.

Your Data Matters to the NHS

Information about your health and care helps us to improve your individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan your local services and research new treatments. The NHS is committed to keeping patient information safe and always being clear about how it is used.

How your data is used

Information about your individual care such as treatment and diagnoses is collected about you whenever you use health and care services. It is also used to help us and other organisations for research and planning such as research into new treatments, deciding where to put GP clinics and planning for the number of doctors and nurses in your local hospital.  It is only used in this way when there is a clear legal basis to use the information to help improve health and care for you, your family and future generations.

Wherever possible we try to use data that does not identify you, but sometimes it is necessary to use your confidential patient information.

You have a choice

You do not need to do anything if you are happy about how your information is used. If you do not want your confidential patient information to be used for research and planning, you can choose to opt out securely online or through a telephone service. You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

Will choosing this opt-out affect your care and treatment?

No, choosing to opt out will not affect how information is used to support your care and treatment. You will still be invited for screening services, such as screenings for bowel cancer.

What do you need to do?

If you are happy for your confidential patient information to be used for research and planning, you do not need to do anything.

To find out more about the benefits of data sharing, how data is protected, or to make/change your opt-out choice visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters

Download a copy of the patient leaflet

All registered patients will be allocated a named GP who will be responsible for their overall care at the practice. Please contact the practice if you wish to know who your allocated GP is. If you have a preference for which GP this is we will make every effort to accommodate your request.

It is very important that you are registered with a doctor near to where you live. We encourage patients to do this as soon as possible if they move out of the practice area. Once you have registered with a new GP, your medical records will be forwarded on to them via NHS England.

NHS England requires all practices to use electronic transfer of patient records (GP2GP) between practices when a patient registers or de-registers from our Practice or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31 ^st   of March 2015.

Belmont Medical Centre already uses GP2GP to transfer patient records electronically, unless there is an issue with the receiving practice’s computer system that does not allow the transfer. This means that your electronic medical record will be available to your new GP as soon as they register you at the practice.

It is important that your medical record is available when and where you need it. You may feel, especially if you have an extensive medical history, that it is important for some of your medical information to be available if, for example, you were on holiday away from the practice area and taken ill. 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. The system in use at Belmont Medical Centre means 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 be. Of course, if you do not want your medical records available in this way, please contact us so that we can update your record to this effect. We will add a code that excludes your records being shared via SCR.

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 average pay for GPs working in Belmont Medical Centre in the last financial year was £52,734 before tax and National Insurance. This is for one full time GP, 5 part time GPs, and no locum GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months.