Practice Charter Standards

Staines Health Group is committed to providing you and your family with quality health care.

• You will be treated in a friendly and courteous manner by all our staff.
• You can expect confidentiality to be maintained at all times (including that for the under 16s). A copy of our confidentiality statement is available from reception.
• The doctors and nurses aim to see patients within 30 minutes of their scheduled appointment. If there are exceptional delays you will be informed of the reasons.
• You can expect to be given an appointment with an unspecified doctor within 48 hours of a request. Some urgent cases can be dealt with by phone and it is our policy to do this if it is of benefit to the patient and the practice. We aim to provide a consultation with a health professional within 24 hours of a request. You can expect to receive a routine appointment with a GP of your choice within five working days - subject to individual GPs' holidays.
• We want to keep you healthy and offer free health promotion services.
• We are committed to ensuring continuing training for all the doctors and the staff to improve our services to you.

Patients Have Responsibilities Too....

• Keep your appointment or cancel it - someone else wants it urgently!
• Do make more than one appointment if more than one person is to be seen when you come to the surgery.
• Please remember that a prescription is not the answer to every consultation.
• Please use our out-of-hours services appropriately - ie when you really cannot wait until the next general surgery.
• Please be courteous to our receptionists - we do not want to lose them and, whatever the problem, it really isn’t their fault!
• Please use the check-in screen, if possible, to check in for your appointment.It releases our reception staff to answer the telephone and deal with queries.
• Look after your own health. Exercise regularly and watch your diet. Ask the doctors or practice nurse for advice.
• Do not threaten violence - we support the NHS 'Zero Tolerance' campaign and will de-register any patient who is violent, threatens violence or is abusive towards any of our staff or visitors.

The premises are monitored with CCTV imaging at all times, including the reception area and car park.

Confidentiality

We keep records about your health and any treatment and care you receive from the National Health Service. These help to ensure that you receive the best possible care from us. They may be written down (manual records) or held on a computer. The records may include basic details about you, contacts we have had, notes and reports about your health, treatment or care needed, details about the treatment and care you receive, results of investigations, relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you. Your records are used to guide and administer the care you receive.

Health records are also used by the NHS to look after the health of the general public, audit NHS accounts and services, investigate complaints or legal claims, plan for future services, measure performance, review care standards, teach and train healthcare professionals and for research and development. When used for such purposes, stringent measures are taken to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified or, if personally identifiable information is used, this is only done with your consent unless the law requires information to be passed on to improve public health.

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential. Please ask for a copy of our useful leaflet “Your Information” for further details on health records and the ways in which this information may be used.

Complaints Procedure

We always try to provide the best services possible, but there may be times when you feel this has not happened. If you do have a complaint please contact our practice manager, who will try to help resolve your problem. You can obtain a patient’s guide to our in-house complaints procedure from reception; using it does not affect your right to complain to the Primary Care Trust.

In Summary:

• Please put your complaint in writing and include the date, time and names of those involved.
• We will acknowledge your complaint within two working days and set in motion any investigations necessary to look into the problem.
• If appropriate, you will be invited in to discuss your complaint with the practice manager and the member of staff or GP/nurse involved. You will be invited to bring a relative, friend or advocate with you to the meeting.
• We hope this will resolve the matter and enable us to either learn from our mistake or to explain our actions etc to your satisfaction.
• If you remain unsatisfied you will have the option of asking the independent Health Service Ombudsman to review your complaint.

Comments & Suggestions

We welcome comments and suggestions from patients. For more active involvement, why not contact our practice manager for details of the practice’s Patient Participation & Involvement Group. We hope the group will help us communicate more effectively with our patients and give them the opportunity to share their views and comments on services and developments within the practice.

Freedom Of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 obliges the practice to produce a Publication Scheme. A Publication Scheme is a guide to the 'classes' of information the practice intends to routinely make available. Details can be obtained from the practice manager.

Any requests for information under the scheme will be dealt with in accordance with the scheme's guidelines.