We are committed to protecting your privacy, and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:

• The Data Protection Act 2018
• General Data Protection Regulations 2016
• The Human Rights Act 1998
• Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
• The Health & Social Care Act 2012
• NHS Codes of Confidentiality
• Information: to Share or Not to Share

All information about patients is confidential, from the most sensitive diagnosis, to the fact of having visited the surgery or being registered at the practice. All patients can expect that their personal information will not be disclosed without their permission except in the most exceptional of circumstances, when somebody is at grave risk of serious harm.

All members of the primary health care team (from reception to doctors) in the course of their duties will have access to your medical records. They all adhere to the highest standards of maintaining confidentiality.

Useful Websites

• Confidentiality NHS Code of Practice Website
• Confidentiality and Mental Health Website
• Confidentiality Guidance Website

The Freedom of Information Act creates a right of access to recorded information and obliges a public authority to:

• Have a publication scheme in place.
• Allow public access to information held by public authorities.

The act covers any recorded organisational information such as reports, policies or strategies, that is held by a public authority in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and by UK-wide public authorities based in Scotland, however it does not cover personal information such as patient records which are covered by the Data Protection Act 2018.

Public authorities include government departments, local authorities, the NHS, state schools and police forces.

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

Who can request information?

Under the act, any individual, anywhere in the world, is able to make a request to a practice 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 him. An individual can request information, regardless of whether he/she is the subject of the information or affected by its use. 

How should requests be made?

Requests must:

• Be made in writing (this can be electronically e.g. email/fax).
• State the name of the applicant and an address for correspondence.
• Describe the information requested.

What cannot be requested?

Personal data about staff and patients covered under Data Protection Act.

For more information see these websites:

• Legislation GOV.UK
• Information Commissioners Office

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 form any judgement about GP earnings nor to make any comparison with any other practice.

The average pay, before tax and national insurance, for GPs working at Houghton Regis Medical Centre in the last financial year £147,799. The number of full time GPs that this relates to is 3, the number of part time GPs this relates to is 2 and the number of locum GPs working over 6 months in the practice that this relates to is 0.

We have allocated a named accountable GP for all of our registered patients. If you do not know who your named GP is, please ask a member of our reception team. Unfortunately, we are unable to notify patients in writing of any change of GP due to the costs involved.

We welcome any compliments, suggestions or comments that you may have about our services, please complete our Feedback form to let us know your thoughts. You can alternatively put a note in the suggestion box in the waiting room.

We try our best to provide a high standard of care at all times, but if you are unhappy with any aspect of our service and would like to complain, please contact the practice manager in writing. Our complaints procedure operates in accordance with NHS guidelines.

We have recently appointed a patient liaison officer, who you can contact in regards to any issues that you have encountered. You can do this by using our online Contact the Practice form, or by phoning the practice and asking for the officer.

We regularly have final year medical students from the Royal Free Hospital and UCL Medical Schools training at the practice. During their attachment, you may be asked if a student can be present at your consultation. You will always have the option of declining if you prefer to have your consultation in private.

We operate a zero tolerance policy to violence against staff. Any incident where staff are abused, threatened or assaulted will result in the patient being reported to the police and being removed from our practice list.

Any verbal abuse towards a member of staff via telephone calls to the practice will not be tolerated, and we will be requesting that the patient/s involved are removed from our list.

During the past 2 years, more and more staff are confronted by verbal abuse on the telephone by patients. We now have introduced a new protocol which states that staff should inform a patient who is becoming verbal and shouting on the phone, that the call is now “going to end”. Our staff are not prepared to be shouted at, or verbally abused. It has happened is the past when the staff can not give the patient answers to the patient’s request.

These are isolated cases, as nearly all of our patients understand the pressures that the NHS is currently going through, with the very high demand for appointments.

Please be assured that we do all we possibly can to help patients. By asking the reason you are requesting an appointment is a way that we triage; some ailments or requests do not necessary mean you need a GP appointment. You do not need to tell us your reason for wanting an appointment, but please do say it’s personal.