Practice Charter

These are the local standards set within this practice for the benefit of our patients. It is our job to give you treatment and advice.

Following discussion with you, you will receive the most appropriate care, given by suitably qualified people. No care or treatment will be given without your informed consent. In the interest of your health it is important for you to understand all the information given to you. Please ask us questions if you are unsure of anything.

Our responsibilities to you

We are committed to giving you the best possible service.

Names: People involved in your care will give you their names and ensure that you know how to contact them. The surgery should be well signposted and the doctors’ or nurses’ names are indicated on their surgery rooms.

Waiting Time: We run an appointment system in this practice. You will be given a time at which the doctor or nurse hopes to be able to see you. You should not wait more than 30 minutes in the waiting room without receiving an explanation for the delay.

Access: You will have access to a doctor rapidly in case of emergency; within half a working day in cases of urgency; and otherwise within three working days. We will arrange a home visit as appropriate for those who are too ill or infirm to be brought to the surgery.

Telephone: We will try to answer the phone promptly and ensure that there are sufficient staff available to do this. You should be able to speak to a doctor by telephone.

Test Results: If you have undergone tests or x-rays ordered by the practice, we will inform you of the results at your next appointment. If no further appointment needs to be arranged, we will advise you when and how to obtain the results.

Respect: Patients will be treated as individuals and partners in their healthcare, irrespective of their ethnic origin or religious and cultural beliefs.

Information: We will give you full information about the services we offer. Every effort will be made to ensure that you receive the information which directly affects your health and the care being offered.

Health Promotion: The practice will offer patients advice and information on:

• Steps they can take to promote good health and avoid illness.
• Self-help which can be undertaken without reference to a doctor in the case of minor ailments.

Health Records: You have the right to see your health records, subject to limitations in the law. These will be kept confidential at all times.

Your responsibilities to us

Help us to help you.

Please let us know if you change your name, address or telephone number.

Please do everything you can to keep appointments. Tell us as soon as possible if you cannot. Otherwise, other patients may have to wait longer.

We need help too. Please ask for home visits by the doctor only when the person is too ill to visit the surgery.

Please keep your phone call brief and avoid calling during the peak morning time for non-urgent matters.

Test results take time to reach us, so please do not ring before you have been asked to do so. Enquiries about tests ordered by the hospital should be directed to the hospital, not the practice.
We ask that you treat the doctors and practice staff with courtesy and respect.

Please read our practice booklet. This will help you to get the best out of the services we offer. It is important that you understand the information given to you. Please ask us questions if you are unsure of anything.

Remember, you are responsible for your own health and the health of your children.We will give you our professional help and advice. Please act upon it.

Please ask if you wish to see your doctor.

Freedom Of Information Act 2000

Welcome to The Newcastle and Silverdale Group Practice General Practitioner’s Publication Scheme. This is a guide to the general practitioners who practise together within the partnership Publication Scheme as required by the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

This Publication Scheme is a guide to the information routinely made available to the public by the general practitioners. It is a description of the information about our general practitioners and practice which we make publicly available. It will be reviewed at regular intervals and we will monitor its effectiveness.

Confidentiality

All information about our patients, whatever their age, including computer data, is treated as strictly confidential. That is why we may not be able to give you information about friends and relatives without their permission.

Practice Complaints Procedure

Although we endeavour to give you the best possible service, there may be times when you feel you have received less than this. This section endeavours to explain the procedure to follow if you have a complaint about the services we provide, but please note that our practice procedure for complaints is not able to deal with questions of legal liability or compensation. We would ask you to note that we do have to respect our duty of confidentiality to our patients. Therefore the patient’s consent must be obtained if a complaint is not made by the patient in person.

The practice hopes that you will feel able to use our in-house complaints procedure to give us the opportunity to investigate and, if necessary, put right any problem or mistake you have identified. We will, of course, carry out a full investigation of the matter and will offer you the opportunity to have an informal interview to discuss the complaint, investigations and our findings.

If you do wish to make a complaint please write to our practice manager or telephone for an interview to discuss the matter. The practice manager will take full details of your complaint and decide how best to undertake the investigation. If you use our practice procedure it will not affect your right to complain to the local Primary Care Trust following the in-house procedure, if you still feel that your complaint has not been adequately addressed. The necessary contact phone numbers for the Practice and the Primary Care Trust are shown below.

It is important that we deal with complaints swiftly, so your complaint will be acknowledged within 48 hours and you will be offered an appointment for a meeting, if you so wish, to discuss the matter within seven days. Occasionally, if we have to make a lot of enquiries, it may take up to four weeks to get back to you with the result, but we will keep you informed. You may bring a colleague with you to the interview. We hope that at the end of the meeting or our investigation you will feel satisfied that we have dealt with the complaint thoroughly. However, if that is not the case and you wish to continue with your complaint, we will direct you to the appropriate authorities who will be able to help you.

Practice Manager

Mrs G Croft
Silverdale Medical Centre
Vale Pleasant, Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire ST5 6PS
Tel: (01782) 612375

Newcastle Primary Care Trust

Corporate Affairs Manager
Bradwell Hospital
Talke Road, Chesterton, Newcastle, Staffordshire ST5 7NJ
Tel: (01782) 425440

Zero Tolerance

We strongly support the NHS policy on zero tolerance. Anyone attending the surgery who abuses the GPs, staff or other patients be it verbally, physically or in any threatening manner whatsoever, will risk removal from the practice list. In extreme cases we may summon the police to remove offenders from the practice premises.