About Our Surgery

Chaperone Policy

We will always respect your privacy, dignity and your religious and cultural beliefs particularly when intimate examinations are advisable – these will only be carried out with your express agreement and you will be offered a chaperone to attend the examination if you so wish.

Complaint Policy

Want to make a suggestion?

Want to make a complaint?

We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

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 use the form below and the practice manager will deal with your concerns appropriately.

Complaints Form

Name

First Last

Address

Street Address Address Line 2 City Postcode Country

Email

Please provide the details of your complaint

CAPTCHA Optional

Phone Optional

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Confidentiality

You can be assured that anything you discuss with any member of the surgery staff, whether doctor, nurse or receptionist, will remain confidential. We are all bound by the same strict confidentiality rules. Even if you are under 16, nothing will be said to anyone, including parents, other family members, care workers or teachers, without your permission. The only reason why we might want to consider passing on confidential information without your permission would be to protect either you or someone else from serious harm. In this situation, we would always try to discuss this with you first.

Data Protection

We need to hold personal information about you on our computer systems and in paper records to help us to look after your health needs, and your doctor is responsible for their accuracy and safe-keeping. Please help to keep your record up to date by informing us of any changes to your circumstances.

Doctors and staff in the practice have access to your medical records to enable them to do their jobs. From time to time information may be shared with others involved in your care if it is necessary. Anyone with access to your record is properly trained in confidentiality issues and is governed by both legal and contractual duty to keep your details private.

All information about you is held securely and appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent accidental loss.

In some circumstances we may be required by law to release your details to statutory or other official bodies, for example if a court order is presented, or in the case of public health issues. In other circumstance you may be required to give written consent before information is released – such as for medical reports for insurance, solicitors etc.

To ensure your privacy, we will not disclose information over the telephone unless we are sure that we are talking to you. Information will not be disclosed to family, friends or spouses unless we have prior written consent, and we do not, leave messages with others.

You have a right to see your records if you wish. Please ask at reception if you would like further details about our patient information leaflet. An appointment may be required. In some circumstances a fee may be payable.

Emergency Care Summary

There is a Central NHS Computer System called the Emergency Care Summary (ECS). The Emergency Care Summary is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. It will contain information on your medications and allergies.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held securely on central NHS databases.

As with all systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. If you don’t want an Emergency Care Summary to be made for you, tell your GP surgery. Don’t forget that if you do have an Emergency Care Summary, you will be asked if staff can look at it every time they need to. You don’t have to agree to this.

GP Earnings

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS Services to patients at each practice. The required disclosure is shown below.

The average pay for GPs working in Rowden Medical Partnership in the last financial year was £79,118 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 18 part time GPs who worked in the practice for six months or more.

NHS England require that the net earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised by 31 March 2025 at the latest. However, it should be noted that the prescribed method of calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice and should not be used for any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparisons with other practices.

IT Policy

This practice is committed to preserving, as far as is practical, the security of data used by our information systems. This means that we will take all reasonable actions to;

Maintain the Confidentiality of all data within the practice by:

Ensuring that only authorised persons can gain access to our systems
Not disclosing information to anyone who has no right to see it

Maintain the integrity of all data within the practice by:

Taking care over input
Ensuring that all changes are reported and monitored
Checking that the correct record is on the screen before updating
Reporting all apparent errors and ensuring that they are resolved

Maintain the availability of all data by:

Ensuring that all equipment is protected from intruders
Ensuring that backups are taken at regular, predetermined intervals
Ensuring that contingency is provided for possible failure or equipment theft and that any such contingency plans are tested and kept up to date

Additionally we will take all reasonable measures to comply with our legal responsibilities under:

NHS Constitution

Personal Data

The following IT systems are in use at the practice:

Electronic Referral Management Service (using NHS numbers in referrals)
Electronic Appointment Booking (the facility to book routine appointments online and, similarly, to cancel appointments)
Online requesting of repeat prescriptions
Summary Care Record (uploading details of your current medication and allergies to the national “spine” so that these are available for doctors involved in your care elsewhere)
GP to GP transfers (the electronic transfer of records from practice to practice when you re-register)
Patient Access to records (the facility to view your medical records online).
Text Messaging services (the facility to send annual health invitations as well as information)

If you are not already registered for online access and would like to be please complete our online form or alternatively sign up for the NHSapp. Please see this page for more information: NHS App – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

If you would like access to your medical records enabled or would like to opt out of the local or national summary care record, please use the link to opt out: www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters.

Policy for Private Non-NHS Referrals

Privacy Policy

Sharing Your Medical Record

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and Community Team Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand.

Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data, e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients’ control and can be shared on a ‘need to know’ basis.

Summary Care Record

Your patient record is held securely and confidentially on the electronic system at your GP practice. If you require treatment in another NHS healthcare setting such as an Emergency Department or Minor Injury Unit, those treating you would be better able to give you appropriate care if some of the information from the GP practice were available to them.

This information can now be shared electronically via: The Summary Care Record, used nationally across England

The information will be used only by authorised health care professionals directly involved in your care. Your permission will be asked before the information is accessed, unless the clinician is unable to ask you and there is a clinical reason for access.

If you would like to opt out, please ask reception for our opt out form.

A parent or guardian can request to opt out children under 16 but ultimately it is the GP’s decision whether to create the records or not, because of their duty of care to the child. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16 and feel that they are able to understand, then you should make this information available to them.

Who Has Access?

Across all health care settings, including urgent care, community care and outpatient departments in England.

Information Source

GP record

Content

Your current medications
Any allergies you have
Any bad reactions you have had to medicines
Additional information (upon request to your GP)

For more information visit: Home – NHS Digital

Training Policy

GPs In Training

Our practice is approved to train fully qualified doctors who wish to specialise in general practice. Our GP registrar will have had 2-4 years of experience as a qualified hospital doctor working in various specialities. They consult patients on their own, under the mentorship of our trainers, Dr Durrant, Dr Stephenson and Dr Watson. Occasionally, we ask permission to video a consultation.

You will always be asked in advance and are given the option not to take part, and this will not affect your care in any way. No recording will be taken without your consent and the camera will be switched off on request. These videos are used only for educational purposes with the doctor doing the consultation and are destroyed after use.

Dr Michael Murray, Dr Malyha Lending and Dr Nichola Coleman are currently GP registrars at the practice.

Medical Students

Medical students are sometimes attached to the practice for 2 – 3 weeks as part of their training. If you do not wish a student to be present during your consultation, please inform the receptionist.

Zero Tolerance 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.

Practice Policies & Patient Information

Want to make a suggestion?

Want to make a complaint?

Complaints Form

Patients Privacy Notice

SystmConnect

How to make a complaint

Who Has Access?

Information Source

Content

GPs In Training

Medical Students

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