Practice Policies

Chaperones

It is the policy of the practice to respect the privacy, dignity, religious and cultural beliefs of our patients.

All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present for any consultation, examination, or procedure where they consider one is appropriate or required. The chaperone may be a family member or a friend, but on occasions a formal chaperone, a member of staff specially trained in this role, may be preferred and/or more appropriate.

Patients are advised to ask for a chaperone if required, at the time of booking an appointment, so that arrangements can be made, and the appointment is not delayed. However, if the request is not made until the time of the appointment, we will always do our utmost to provide.

On occasions, a doctor or nurse may request a chaperone to be present including if this is not felt necessary by the patient. This will be discussed with you within your appointment.

All clinicians are trained chaperones, their role can be considered in any of the following areas:

  • Emotional comfort and reassurance to patients
  • Assist in intimate examination.
  • Assist in undressing.
  • Act as interpreter
  • Protection to the healthcare professional

If you feel you would like a chaperone to be present during a physical examination by a doctor or any other health professional, or if you would prefer to be examined by a doctor or health professional of the same sex as yourself, please let us know and we will do our best to comply with your wishes.

Confidentiality & Privacy

We take your privacy very seriously. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller and our registration number can be found if you search the ICO online register.

We aim to provide you with the highest quality health care. To do this we must keep records about you, your health, and the care we have provided or plan to provide to you.

Please be aware that both clinical and administrative staff will access your personal data, and both are bound by confidentiality in the same way.

Please use the links below to find more information about confidentiality and privacy:

Did Not Attend

If you need to cancel an appointment (link to relevant section), please let us know as early as possible so that this can be utilised for another patient.

Any/every appointment missed is NHS time and money wasted.

If you miss an appointment, we may contact you to see if this needs to be re-booked and/or to see if there is any additional support we can provide.

It is not acceptable to abuse the system of booking appointments and not attending, if this repeatedly occurs, we may consider your continued registration.

Equality & Diversity

The Reepham and Aylsham Medical Practice recognises that many people in our society experience discrimination or lack of opportunity for reasons that are not fair. We are committed to a policy of equality and opportunity which respects the identity, rights, and value of everyone, be they a patient or a member of staff.

Please make the practice manager aware if you have any concerns that equality and diversity issues have not been respected.

Freedom of Information (FOI)

The Freedom of Information Act creates a right of access to recorded information such as, reports, policies, or strategies, that is held by a public authority in England including the NHS.  It does not cover personal information such as patient records which are covered by the Data Protection Act.

The Act is enforced by the Information Commissioner who regulates both the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act.

The Surgery publication scheme

A publication scheme requires an authority to make information available to the public as part of its normal business activities. The scheme lists information under seven broad classes, which are:

  • Who we are and what we do.
  • What we spend and how we spend it
  • What our priorities are and how we are doing it
  • How we make decisions
  • Our policies and procedures
  • Lists and registers.
  • The services we offer.

Under the Act, any individual, anywhere in the world, can make a request to us for information. An applicant is entitled to be informed in writing, by the practice, whether the practice holds information of the description specified in the request and if that is the case, have the information communicated to them. An individual can request information, regardless of whether they are the subject of the information or affected by its use. 

FOI requests must be made in writing, state the name of the applicant and an address for correspondence and describe the information being requested. We will not provide any personal data about staff and/or patients which would be covered under the Data Protection Act.

Infection Control Statement

We aim to keep our surgery clean, tidy, well maintained and offer a safe environment to our patients and staff.

If you have any concerns about cleanliness or infection control, please report these to our reception staff.

Our GPs and nursing staff follow our Infection Control Policy to ensure the care we deliver and the equipment we use is safe.

We take additional measures to ensure we maintain the highest standards:

  • Encourage staff and patients to raise any issues or report any incidents relating to cleanliness and infection control. We can discuss these and identify improvements we can make to avoid any future problems.
  • Carry out an annual infection control audit to make sure our infection control procedures are working.
  • Provide annual staff updates and training on cleanliness and infection control.
  • Review our policies and procedures to make sure they are adequate and meet national guidance.
  • Maintain the premises and equipment to a high standard within the available financial resources and ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to reduce or remove all infection risk.
  • Use washable or disposable materials for items such as couch rolls, modesty curtains, floor coverings, towels etc., and ensure that these are cleaned or changed frequently to minimise risk of infection.
  • Make alcohol hand gel available throughout the building.

Sharing Initiative and Fair Processing Materials

Serious Mental Illness (SMI) Register

We are involved in sharing information with mental health services in the community about patients with SMI. A register is maintained that allows us and other mental health teams to monitor the health checks provided to patients with SMI.

Diabetic Eye Screening

We use our clinical system to identify patients eligible for diabetic eye screening and send details to our health partner Spectra at Health Intelligence who manage invitation of our patients to appointments. Health Intelligence are committed to confidentiality, and we have and Information Sharing Agreement in place to ensure that your personal data is used in a lawful and appropriate way.

Summary Care Record (SCR)

As a patient you currently have a SCR containing a summary of key information which gives registered and regulated healthcare professionals, away from our practice, access to information to provide safer care, reduce the risk of prescribing errors and improve the patient experience.

There is a basic and enhanced level SCR. The basic SCR is automatically created when you register with a GP, and you can request to opt-in to the enhanced with us by completing an SCR Consent Form (link – to be agreed).

We fully support SCRs as an effective way to provide information which contributes to your safety when care is provided across multiple NHS organisations. You can change your mind any time.

Find more information on Summary Care Records on the NHS England website.

Child Health Immunisations

We allow Provide to extract childhood immunisation history from our clinical system to facilitate invitation of patients to appointments. Provide staff are committed to confidentiality, and we have and Information Sharing Agreement in place to ensure that your personal data is used in a lawful and appropriate way.

GP Connect

GP Connect is technology used within our practice to allow computer systems at different health and social care organisations to communicate with each other. Staff in different teams and locations can:

  • View a patient’s GP practice record.
  • Manage GP appointments.
  • Import or download data relating to a patient’s medicines and allergies.

An example of when this might be used is the NHS 111 service.

Social Prescribers

Social prescribers (link to relevant section) are not always employed directly by the practice e.g., they may be provided by the local council. We may, with your consent, refer you to a social prescribing service which will require the sharing of your personal details and medical record. All/any provider of this service is bound by confidentiality in the same way as practice staff and there is a data sharing agreement in place to ensure that personal data is used in a lawful and appropriate way.

Risk Stratification

This is a process used across the NHS to use technology to search patient records within clinical systems to find information that tells us if a patient might need extra care.

The information from your GP record will be combined with other information about when you have been to hospital or used other community services and will be used by the Norfolk & Waveney ICB (link to relevant section) to plan and/or buy health care services in our local area. The NWICB will not have access to any information that identifies you as a person but instead use code to represent a patient in number.

Case Finding/Profiling

Sometimes, your information will be used to identify whether you need support from us. We might look at specific ‘indicators’ such as diagnosis and then contact you or act for healthcare purposes. We will use automated technology to help us identify people that might require support but ultimately, the decision about how or whether to provide this will be made by those involved in your care.

Sharing: When Required by Law

We will sometimes, be required by law to share your information and will not always be able to discuss this with you directly. This might be for the purposes of detection of prevention of crime, where it is in the wider public interest, to safeguard children or vulnerable adults, reporting infectious diseases of where required by a court order.

Care Quality Commission (CQC): Access to Health Records

CQC has powers under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to access and use your health information where it is necessary to carry out their functions as a regulator. This means that inspectors may ask to look at certain records to decide whether we are providing safe, good quality care.

Information on Access and Rights:

Data protection law provides you with several rights that the practice is committed to supporting you with:

  • Right to Access: You have the right to obtain confirmation on how your information is being used, stored, or shared by us and a copy of information held about you. Please see ‘Subject Access Requests’ (link to relevant section) for information on how to request this or email us directly.
  • Right to Object or Withdraw Consent: When we are using, storing, and sharing your information based on consent you have provided (explicit), you have a right to withdraw this at any time.
  • Right to Correction: If information we hold about you is incorrect, you are entitled to request that we correct it. There may be occasions where we are required by law to maintain the original information which we would discuss with you directly if this is the case.
  • Right to Complain: You have the right to complain and request an investigation into the way your information is being used. Please see ‘Compliments, Complaints and Feedback’ (link to relevant section) for more information.

For detailed information on your Individual Rights please see the ICO website.

Information Technology

We instruct other organisations to provide services that involve your information:

  • Removal and destruction of confidential waste
  • Provision of Clinical Systems
  • Provision of connectivity and servers
  • Digital dictation services

We have contracts in place with these providers to prevent them from using your data in any other way than that instructed. Personal data that we hold will never be sold or made available to organisations not related to your care delivery.

How We Keep Your Information Safe

We are committed to ensuring the security and confidentiality of your information. There are several ways in which we do this:

  • Annual training for staff about protecting and using personal data.
  • Policies in place for staff to follow which are regularly reviewed.
  • Checks that only the minimum amount of data is shared or accessed.
  • Smart card technology to ensure control of access to our systems.
  • Encrypted emails and storage to prevent unauthorised 3rd party interception.
  • Investigation and reporting of any incidents to make sure we learn and improve.
  • Contracts with all data controllers/processors
  • Commitment to never sending your data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)

Zero Tolerance

The practice observes and supports the NHS Zero Tolerance policy whereby any incident where an employee is abused, threatened, or assaulted in circumstances related to their work is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

We understand that patients who are ill may not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint. We ask you to treat our staff with courtesy and act reasonably.

Aggressive behaviour will not be tolerated, and the police will always be contacted in the event of any violence or physical threat of violence. Any violence will result in the immediate removal from our patient list and any other circumstance will be reviewed individually and may result in similar action.

A good patient-doctor relationship is based on mutual respect and trust. Any breakdown to this may also result in the removal from our practice patient list.

In rare cases, we may consider removal of household members, due to the risk posed if our staff needed to visit them at home in the presence of a patient previously found to be violent of demonstrate aggressive behaviour. Please respect us, we are here to help!