We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

To pursue a complaint please;

• email us at nelondonicb.debeauvoir@nhs.net
• include your date of birth and name in your complaint and try to give as much information as possible.

Your complaint will then be reviewed and one of our management team will get in contact with you within 72hrs.

Contact details for other services

If you wish to escalate your complaint: 

• NHS England
• Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
• The Advocacy Project – the Independent Health and Care Advocacy Services for Hackney
• Healthwatch Hackney – Hackney’s health and care watchdog.
• The Complaints Policy – information about Hackney’s Health and Social Care Complaints Charter

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.

De Beauvoir General Practice Privacy Notice June 2022

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practitoners 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

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

Read/Download our COVID-19 Privacy Notice

Read/Download our GDPR – Privacy Notice for General Practice

Patient Letter

The data held in the GP medical records of patients is used every day to support health and care planning and research in England, helping to find better treatments and improve patient outcomes for everyone. NHS Digital has developed a new way to collect this data, called the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) data collection.

This data will be shared from 1 July 2021. Data may be shared from the GP medical records about:

• any living patient registered at a GP practice in England when the collection started – this includes children and adults
• any patient who died after 1 July 2021, and was previously registered at a GP practice in England when the data collection started

NHS Digital will not collect patients’ names or addresses. Any other data that could directly identify patients (such as NHS Number, date of birth, full postcode) is replaced with unique codes which are produced by de-identification software before the data is shared with NHS Digital.

However, it is important to realise that this data is only pseudo-anonymised.

Sharing data within the health service is enormously useful and is essential to planning for example during the current pandemic.

However, there are concerns by some that this data is being made available to third party organisations outside the NHS including those paying to use this data for commercial enterprises.

Please see the link below for a useful blog on this:
GP Data Sharing – Dr Bhatti.com

We have been given no option other than to enable this data sharing. However, you can opt-out.

If you don’t want your identifiable patient data to be shared for purposes except for your own care, you can opt-out by registering a Type 1 Opt-out or a National Data Opt-out, or both. These opt-outs are different, and they are explained in more detail below. Your individual care will not be affected if you opt-out using either option.

For more information, please visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/ and digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research

Following a review of the prescribing policies by doctors at the Practice, the decision has been made to limit the prescribing of sedatives (such as diazepam and temazepam) for ‘fear of flying.’

We provide the following information which gives the background and strong reasons to implement this decision. We hope that you will understand our stance on this. Many other GP practices have similar policies across the UK. We also provide the following advice to patients with worries about flying.

The reasons behind this decision:

• Emergencies are rare whilst flying, but taking sedatives like diazepam reduces reaction in the event of an emergency.
• These medicines cause deep sleep and not moving around increases the risk of getting a blood clot in the leg (deep vein thrombosis – DVT) or lungs (pulmonary embolus). Especially if your flight is longer than 4 hours.
• Occasionally diazepam and similar drugs can cause agitation/aggression.
• There is evidence that the use of these drugs stops the normal adjustment response that would gradually lessen anxiety over time and may increase anxiety in the long term, especially if used repeatedly, in general, as well as for this purpose.
• Sedative use added to alcohol consumption increases effects.
• Diazepam and similar controlled drugs are illegal (even if prescribed) in many countries and may cause trouble with the police if found at Customs.
• Diazepam stays in your system for some time. If your job or sport needs you to have random drug testing, you may fail this having taken diazepam.

Resources from the aviation industry:

easyJet – www.fearlessflyer.easyjet.com

British Airways – www.flyingwithconfidence.com

Virgin Atlantic – https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/wellbeing-and-health/flying-without-fear.html

Further points for consideration

Flight anxiety does not come under the remit of General Medical Services as defined in the GP contract and so GPs are not obliged to prescribe for this.

It is important to tell your travel insurer about your medical conditions and the medications you take. If you do not, there is a risk of your insurer not paying if you try to make a claim.

More information on how to manage a fear of flying and flying anxiety can be found here.

2024 De Beauvoir Surgery Practice Leaflet

The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The Practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time.  The staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

• Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
• Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
• Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
• Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.