Practice Policies

Confidentiality & Medical Records

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.

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practioners 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 office 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 office manager. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

Complaints

We operate a Practice Complaints Procedure for dealing with complaints which meets national criteria.

If, unfortunately, you have cause to complain, please contact the office manager who will take appropriate action. We aim to deal with any problem both quickly and effectively. You will receive an acknowledgement within 2 working days, and an explanation within 10 working days. It would be helpful if you would inform us of any problems as soon as possible after the incident has taken place.

In investigating a complaint, we aim to:

• Find out what happened, and what went wrong
• Enable you, if you would like, to discuss the problem with those concerned
• Ensure you receive an apology, if appropriate
• Try to prevent the same thing happening in the future

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, and in order to maintain patient confidentiality, we will require to know that you have their permission to do so.  If you would prefer to talk to someone who is not involved, you can telephone or write to The Complaints Officer, NHS Highland, Raigmore Hospital, INVERNESS. Tel 704000.

You will be given a prompt reply within 4 weeks of them receiving your complaint. Where there are good reasons why this cannot be achieved, you will be kept informed of progress.

Violence Policy

The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.