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).
• 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.

Access to Medical Records

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients can request to view their medical records.  Such requests are made through the Practice Manger or Administrator.  Patients can also request copies of their medical records and this can be facilitated through our reception team - this will require photographic ID and completion of a subject access report form.  Depending on the size of notes this can take up to 3 months.  There may be a fee if notes are requested frequently.

GDPR

Processing your personal information comes with significant responsibilities on our part, and we want you to know that we take those responsibilities very seriously.

From Friday 25th May 2018, The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will replace current data protection laws in the European Union.

Please note we are no longer able to release medical information to family members or friends without signed consent from the patient. On the consent form, you are asked to nominate someone to collect your medical information on your behalf. Please inform the nominee that they may be asked for photo ID on arrival.

Equality and Respect

We are committed to treating all patients in a courteous, consistent and professional manner. We aim to have a mutually fair and respectful relationship with our patients and to provide equality of service to all patients in an environment which is free from discrimination or harassment.

Unacceptable Behaviour

At our practice we operate a No Tolerance policy regarding abusive or aggressive behaviour towards any member of our staff. We aim to provide a comprehensive and professional service in an efficient and pleasant manner to all our patients. We strive to provide a helpful and friendly environment. We would like to ask that patients co-operate with all our policies and treat our staff in a courteous manner. Safety is of paramount importance at our practice and, accordingly, any patient or visitor who is abusive or aggressive in a verbal or physical manner, will be asked to leave the premises immediately and will be removed from the patient list. We consider aggressive behaviour to include any personal, abusive or threatening comments, bad language, physical contact, aggressive gestures and theft or damage to property.

Complaints Procedure

We strive to provide the best service for our patients.  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 contact the Practice Manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.

The practice would ask that you do not make comment on  social media regarding the Practice, GPs or any member of our staff.

Should such comments  come to our attention we will ask that they be taken down.

We have a fully operational complaints procedure should you feel that you have not received a satisfactory service from the practice. This way you can voice your concerns directly to us and complaints can be resolved locally. This procedure is confidential and we at the practice always endeavour to help.

Comments on social media can be defamatory and can lead to poor relations between patients and the practice. It can undermine the trust and quality of service which we work hard to maintain.

The staff at this practice record information about you and your health so that you can receive the right care and treatment.  We need to record this information, together with the details of the care you receive, because it may be needed if we see you again.

We may use some of this information for other reasons, for example, to help us to protect the health of the general public generally, to plan for the future, to train staff and to carry out medical and other health research for the benefit of everyone.

We are currently involved in research studies for which we provide anonymised information from patients’ notes.  You cannot be identified in any way from this information as none of your personal details are given to researchers.  Individual patients’ records are added into a much larger anonymous database, containing records from millions of patients across the UK.  This information is used by researchers outside this practice.  The database to which we contribute anonymised records is known as The Health Improvement Network (THIN).  This data may be anonymously linked to other data, such as hospital data. This database is managed by a company outside the NHS which does not have access to your personal details, only to anonymous medical records.  The data are used for research into such topics as drug safety, disease patterns, prescribing patterns, health economics and public health.  Many of these studies provide useful information to medical staff on diseases, the use of drugs or outcomes of disease or treatment.

These studies may be performed by academic researchers or commercial companies amongst others.  However, no researcher has access to your full details such as your name and address, initials or your full date of birth.  The researchers are not given information about the GP nor the practice name, address or post code.

If you would like to opt out of this data collection scheme, please let your doctor know and no data from your records will be collected for use in research. This will not affect your care in any way.

If anything to do with the research would require that you provide additional information about yourself, you will be contacted to see if you are willing to take part: You will not be identified in any published results.

Note that you have a right of access to your health records.  If at any time you would like to know more, or have any concerns about how we use your information, you can speak to The Practice Manager,  Telephone number: 02870829558

Please note that there will be new changes to how ambulance transport is arranged. 

If you require ambulance transport for a out patient hospital appointment, you should now contact the hospital directly to make these arrangements. 

Portrush Medical Centre will no longer be responsible for booking ambulance transport for hospital out patient appointments.