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 indicated on their surgery room doors.

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.

Patient rights

Patients at this practice are entitled to:

• be provided with services in a courteous, civil and co-operative manner.
• a clear explanation of and advice on, the patient's medical condition and any proposed treatment.
• a referral for specialist medical opinion or other second opinion in appropriate circumstances.
• receive information via the practice noticeboard of any relevant health promotion exercise and preventative medicine initiatives.
• absolute confidentiality of medical records maintained by the practice subject to any provisions for disclosure imposed or allowed by law.
• access their own personal health records, in accordance with the Data Protection Act (please contact the Practice Manager if you wish to view your records).
• have any formal complaint against the practice investigated and dealt with fairly and according to the practice complaints procedure.
• request (either in writing or verbally) to be seen by a particular doctor. We shall endeavour to comply with this request but need not do so if the preferred doctor is not able to, or has reasonable grounds for refusing.

Patient responsibilities

The practice is entitled to:

• receive co-operation, civility and courtesy from its patients at all times.

We will ask that you:

• Please inform the practice if you change your telephone number, name or address (remember to add your postcode).
• Please make appointments that you know you can keep, and arrive on time. If for some reason you are unable to keep your appointment make sure you inform the practice as soon as possible.
• Ask for a GP home visit only if you are too ill to go to the surgery. We operate to Local Medical Committee guidelines on who should receive a home visit and operate a system of nurse triage for such requests. If possible telephone before 11.00am.
• Read our practice booklet and browse this website. This will help you get the best from the services available.
• Be patient if the doctors are running late - on another occasion it might be you who needs the extra time.
• Do not ask for another member of the family to be seen at your appointment without making prior arrangements.

The practice will not accept:

• rudeness, threats or aggressive behaviour directed towards practitioners, staff or other patients, or repeated abuse of its facilities including emergency or out of hours service. The practice may remove from the list anyone who is violent or abusive.

Freedom Of Information Act 2000

If you would like a copy of the Silverdale and Ryecroft Practice General Practitioners Publication Scheme, please contact Wendy Moreton, Practice Manager. The 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.

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

Newcastle Primary Care Trust

Cathy Haigh
Business Support and Complaints Manager
St George's Chambers
Merrial Street
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Staffordshire ST5 2AE
Tel: (01782) 427414

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.