Practice Information
Practice Mission Statement
We aim to provide a high level of quality primary care in a friendly, pleasant and informal environment. The relationship between a Patient and the Surgery is an important one. In order that our relationship can flourish we need to understand what we can reasonably expect from each other. For our part we undertake to:
- Aim to give our patients the best care possible within the constraints of the NHS system
- Aim to provide good accessible medical care to our local community
- Aim to provide a healthy work environment where members of the team are valued
- Play to each other’s strengths, not exploit our weaknesses.
- Aim to keep abreast of the changes in the NHS
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 Practitioners 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 practice manager.
Access to Medical 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 practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
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.
Service Levels
Southbourne Surgery service delivery system
Since September 2022 we have developed a system within the surgery which focuses on maintaining our capacity to maintain safe working practice across the surgery if we have levels of staff absence due to sickness which result in reduced capacity. For clinical staff this is based on the number of appointments offered with a prescribing clinician, including nurse prescribers. Where this falls below a safe number we will make temporary adjustments to our services to mitigate any risks and ensure safe working practice can continue. This will result in limitations being placed on our service, for example, the number of e-consults may be limited or turned off, routine on the day appointments may not be available with a GP or patients requesting an urgent face to face may be asked to attend local urgent treatment centres.
You can read about how these changes will affect you as a patient by downloading this information sheet Service Level How this affects you
Service levels are affected by all staffing levels including administrative and patient services. For example, if our secretary is absent from work this means that a member of the patient services team is needed to cover her work and ensure that clinical documentation is processed in a timely manner and actions for GPs highlighted to aid work management.
A second example would be if several members of our patient services team were absent this would impact on our ability to process prescriptions and would necessitate reduced staffing on the phones in order to maintain processing of prescriptions in a timely manner.
Decisions about whether to escalate to a specific service level are made by the Practice Business Manager and/or the Operational Manager / Assistant Practice Manager
Service levels may be implemented in a non-sequential order.
