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 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.
Complaints
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 contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.
Please click here for our complaint form
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.
Your Shared Record
For some time, to help with your care, some NHS health and social care organisations have been able to view your medical information (your ‘GP shared record’) if you have consented to share it. Patients can:
- Consent to share their record
- Dissent to share their record
Please note: We may have already set an option for your record to be shared or not shared. This might have been because of your stated preferences when you registered at the practice or when we referred you to another service such as the Integrated Care Team at Harrogate Hospital. If it is shared, it will only be shared with trusted local and national services, for example Harrogate Hospital Services and all A&E services. However, you can change these settings using our online services or by contacting the practice.
If you choose to share your record you can now select how widely you want to share from the following option settings (3 is the default):
- No organisations require verification – use this if you are happy for all organisations who provide you with care to view the shared record, without having to complete the extra verification process (detailed below). These organisations should still ask consent when they want to access your record and inform you prior to accessing it
- All organisations require verification – use this if you wish to have an extra verification process to allow organisations who provide you with care to access your shared record (detailed below).
- Practice default – this will use the controls currently set by East Parade. We have created a list of trusted organisations locally and nationally who will not require verification. Click Here for a Full List. All other organisations will require verification.
- Custom – you can choose:
- Which health and social care organisations may access your shared record without an extra verification process by creating your own list of organisations. Consent should still be asked prior to your shared record being accessed at those organisations. Organisations not on this list will need you to complete an extra verification step in order to view your shared record.
- Which organisations cannot access your shared record under any circumstances. If you would like to add or remove any organisations please speak to your GP.
Verification Process:
When verification is required:
- you will receive a unique code sent to you by SMS or email that you pass to the doctor or nurse to enable them to see your record; or
- you approve the organisation’s request through SystmOnline
For this reason we need to always have your up to date mobile number and email address. These and your preferences can easily be updated using SystmOnline or the SystmOne App. For more details and to register for our online services please contact the Reception Team.