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Complaints
We have an in-house complaints system. Please ask the receptionist for a
form and explanatory notes, or you may write to or speak to the practice manager
if you wish to make a complaint about our services.
We discuss all complaints
and comments at our weekly team meetings.
Private
Fees
Please note that you will be charged for non-NHS work
undertaken by the doctors. This includes private medicals, insurance forms, signing
of passports etc. You will be advised of the cost of this work when making an
appointment. Medicals are not carried out during normal consultations.
Audit
Visits To Practices
Berkshire West NHS has a statutory
responsibility to account for its use of public funds. This includes auditing
of payments made to GPs for the services that they provide.
To enable the
authority to perform this function it may be necessary for PCT staff, who may
not be medically qualified, to have access to personal information including records
of attendance made at the surgery and of the services provided.
Such checks
will only be carried out by a small number of PCT staff who must keep all information
about patients completely confidential. They are reminded of this by being required
to sign a special confidentiality agreement. You do have the right to object to
information about you being used for audit purposes. You should tell the practice,
preferably in writing. Any such objections will be respected.
Information
about patients and their clinical care is held on our computer.
Removal
Of Patients From Practice List
This will only be done for
the following reasons:
• Change of address outside of our practice
area, when the patient fails to re-register with another GP.
• Irretrievable
breakdown of the patient/doctor relationship.
• Violence or threatening
behaviour towards a doctor or a member of our staff.
In all cases the removal
will be carried out after careful consideration of the circumstances, and every
attempt will be made to notify the patient of the decision in writing.
We will remove any patient who has committed an act of violence or caused a doctor or any member of the practice staff to fear for his or her safety, and the police will be informed.
Freedom Of Information
- Publication Scheme
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 obliges the practice to produce a Publication Scheme. A Publication Scheme is a guide to the ‘classes’ of information the practice intends to routinely make available.
Patient Confidentiality And Data Protection
We ask you for personal information so that you can receive appropriate care and treatment. This information is recorded on computer and we are registered under the Data Protection Act. The practice will ensure that patient confidentiality is maintained at all times by all members of the practice team. However, for the effective functioning of a multi-disciplinary team it is sometimes necessary that medical information about you is shared between members of the practice team.
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