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.

General Practice Extraction Service (GPES)

The General Practice Extraction Service will be used to extract data, to help improve patient care and the services provided.

The identifiers to be extracted are: NHS number, date of birth, postcode and gender which will allow patients' GP data to be linked to their hospital data. No free text will be extracted, only coded information about referrals, NHS prescriptions and other clinical data.

If you wish to opt out of the sharing of the data or have any concerns please speak to a member of staff at the practice, or visit www.nhs.uk/caredata for more information.

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

All patients’ details, including medical records are kept on computer.  The practice is registered with the Data Protection Bureau.  If you require seeing your computer record this can be arranged by contacting the practice manager.  There may be a charge for this.

All staff have signed a contract of confidentiality and we will not disclose anything from your records without your signed consent to do so.

Patient Online Access to GP Record

If you are a registered online user you will be able to view summary information, which means data relating to medications, allergies and adverse reactions.  To obtain a password to register for online services you need to visit the surgery and ask at the reception desk.

Complaints

We constantly strive to give you the best possible care and attention.  We operate an in-house complaints system.  If you are at all unhappy about any aspect of our service please ask to speak to the Practice Manager or alternatively write to her direct at The Health Centre or email to manorroad.healthcentre@nhs.net. This email address is checked daily by staff Monday - Friday.  It is important that patients do not request home visits, appointments, prescriptions or anything urgent via this email address. 

To pursue a complaint please contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.

Non-Discrimination

Patients will be treated with respect and courtesy and not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex, race colour or creed.

Patients should afford the same level of courtesy and respect to all members of the practice.  Patients should also recognise that verbal or physical abuse will not be tolerated.

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.

Infection Control Annual Statement 2014

 Purpose

 This annual statement will be generated each year in August. It will summarise:

• Any infection transmission incidents and any action taken (these will have been reported in accordance with our Significant Event procedure)
• Details of any infection control audits undertaken and actions undertaken
• Details of any control risk assessments undertaken
• Details of staff training
• Any review and update of policies, procedures and guidelines

 Background

Dr Hill and Partners has one lead for infection, prevention and control, Teresa Malton, Lead Practice Nurse and she is supported by Patricia Cooper, Practice Manager.

Teresa Malton attends annual infection control training and keeps up to date with regulations and changes. These are disseminated to staff and staff training takes place yearly.

Significant Events

In the past year there have been no significant events raised that related to infection control.

Audits

In August 2014 an Infection, Prevention and Control audit was carried out by City Health Care Partnership CIC, Teresa Malton, Lead Nurse and Patricia Cooper, Practice Manager. The practice’s compliance has increased from 81% in 2013 to 94% compliant in 2014.

Infection Control Comparison 2013 and 2014

Risk Assessment and corrective actions:

An infection control inspection was carried out on the 13^th August 2014 and the following actions were noted:

Staff Records – ensure that hand hygiene refresher training is conducted annually and documented: Action – Teresa Malton

Clinical Environment – cleaning schedules should include high surfaces: Action – Patricia Cooper

Clinical Equipment – Sterile medical devices/items to be stored away from exposure to water/moisture, preferably in a cupboard, drawers or covered shelving: Action – Teresa Malton

Hand Hygiene – Taps on clinical hand wash basins should not have ‘swan neck’ fittings and should be considered for replacement. Splashbacks should be free from damage and in a good state of repair to enable adequate cleaning (1 tile broken): Action – Patricia Cooper

The hand hygiene refresher training has since been completed.

We will aim to do more to share information with our patients and will therefore place a copy of this Annual Statement on our practice website.   We will notify patients of any seasonal influenza outbreaks that they may need to be aware of via the waiting room TV and our website.

Staff training

At the time of the publication of the annual infection control statement all clinical staff were in date for infection control training.

Policies, procedures and guidelines

Policies, relating to Infection Prevention and Control are reviewed and updated annually. However, all are amended on an on-going basis as current advice changes.

Infection Control Annual Statement 2015

Purpose

This annual statement will be generated each year. It will summarise:

• Any infection transmission incidents and any action taken (these will have been reported in accordance with our Significant Event procedure)
• Details of any infection control audits undertaken and actions undertaken
• Details of any control risk assessments undertaken
• Details of staff training
• Any review and       update of policies, procedures and guidelines

Background

Teresa Malton, Lead Practice Nurse is the practice lead for infection, prevention and control. She is supported by Nurse Emma Pollard, Deputy.

Teresa Malton attends annual infection control training and keeps up to date with regulations and changes. These are disseminated to staff. Staff training takes place yearly.

Significant Events

In the past year there have been no significant events raised that related to infection control.

Audits

In July 2015 an Infection, Prevention and Control audit was carried out by City Health Care Partnership CIC with Emma Pollard, Deputy Nurse and Patricia Cooper, Practice Manager. The practice’s compliance overall was 93%.

Infection Control Compliance 2015

Risk Assessment and corrective actions:

An infection control inspection was carried out on the 28^th July 2015 and the following actions were noted:

Governance and Documentary Evidence – Toy cleaning schedules should be available to provide information on the type and frequency of cleaning. Action: Pat Cooper

Clinical Environment – The clinical/treatment/consulting room should be tidied up and all inappropriate items removed to facilitate cleaning and minimise the risk of contamination. Action: Emma Pollard

Clinical Equipment – Medical devices (non-surgical)/clinical equipment should be visibly clean and fee from stains, spills, dust etc  Action: Emma Pollard

Hand Hygiene – Taps on clinical hand wash basins should not have ‘swan neck’ fittings and should be considered for replacement. Action: Patricia Cooper

Waste Management – All waste bins should be fire retardant. If plastic, these must be heavy duty and labelled fire retardant. Action: Patricia Cooper/Emma Pollard

Decontamination of Environment – The designated cleaning cupboard should be free of inappropriate items and only be used to store cleaning equipment and products (coat had been left). Action: Patricia Cooper

Minor Surgery – Swan neck fittings on taps at clinical hand wash basins are present. Clinical waste bins should be foot operated and in good working order.

We will aim to do more to share information with our patients and will therefore place a copy of this Annual Statement on our practice website.   We will notify patients of any seasonal influenza outbreaks that they may need to be aware of via the waiting room TV and our website.

Staff training

At the time of the publication of the annual infection control statement all clinical staff were in date for infection control training.

Policies, procedures and guidelines

Policies, relating to Infection Prevention and Control are reviewed and updated annually. However, all are amended on an on-going basis as current advice changes.

“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.

NHS England require that the net earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised and the required disclosure is shown below. However, it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice and should not be used to for any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparisons with other practices.

The average earnings for GPs working in Dr Underwood and Partners in the last financial year ending in 2017/18 was £64,195 before taxation and National Insurance. This is for 4 full time GPs and 5 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.

From 1 April 2015, practices are required under the contract to allocate a named, accountable GP to all patients (including children).

All patients will be allocated a named GP who is responsible for patients' overall care at the practice. If a patient has a preference as to which GP that it is, the practice will make reasonable efforts to accommodate this request

Patient GDPR Privacy Notice

Patient Privacy Notice

Patients have the right to request access to their medical records.  In some cases this information may be available online via your online systmone record.  Access to this can be requested via reception.  However if you would like further information from your clinical record as there isn't enough detail online patients are asked to complete the form which can be downloaded from the website (subject access request form).

Subject Access Request Form