Patient Charter

Introduction

This charter has been devised and agreed upon by our practice team and our Patient Participation Group. It sets out how the practice operates.

Process

1. Our team is there to help you and whilst it may not always be in the way you want, politeness and respect is expected at all times. The practice adheres to the NHS zero tolerance policy. This policy is available on our website.
2. The reception team can only offer appointments that are available. If there are no appointments available, they cannot offer you one and may advise you of other services available.
3. If you have a problem that needs an answer today and there are no available appointments today, the receptionist will take detail and pass this information onto the relevant clinician in between patients. If you have not heard anything from a member of our team by 5pm, please contact the practice.
4. A 10 minute GP appointment is for one problem only. You may ask a clinician about other issues but they may ask you to make a further appointment if they run out of time and feel they cannot deal with all your issues safely.
5. Appointments are valuable. If you are 5 minutes late for an appointment, you may not be seen. It is up to the clinician if they can still see you but you may be asked to wait or make a further appointment.
6. Prescriptions can take up to 48 hours to process before sending to a pharmacy. This does not include Saturdays and Sundays. Any urgent prescription will be completed in exceptional circumstances only, be authorised by a clinician and be sent to a pharmacy after 5pm each day.
7. We do not take prescription requests over the telephone. There are other ways to order your prescriptions. You can order online, through the pharmacy and by putting a request in the box in the practice reception or the letter box in the main practice entrance.
8. Results are only available over the telephone after 2:30pm each day except Thursdays when results are not available over the phone. On Thursdays you can get your results in person at our reception.
9. If you would like someone else to have access to your records, we need to know. Please ask at reception for details as to how to do this. Due to confidentiality laws, we can only give information to the patient or a person the patient has given to consent to.
10. We take complaints seriously and will respond to these in a timely manner but it may not be possible to solve the problem the same day.