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Patients' rights and responsibilities


Patients rights and responsibilities overview

The relationship between a GP surgery and their patients is based on trust, mutual respect, and open communication.

This partnership between GP surgeries and their patients is crucial for ensuring high-quality medical care and promoting overall health and well-being.

Below are listed some of the key elements that help to support and sustain the important relationship.

Named GP

Confirmation

In accordance with our contract with NHS England, every patient is allocated a named GP

The practice's responsibilities

  • All patients should be given a named GP within 20 days of registration and told so at the next appropriate time.

  • The practice must confirm on their website that every patient has a named GP.

  • If a patient requests a particular GP, reasonable efforts should be made to accommodate their preference.

  • Practices are required to use the code 'patient allocated named accountable general practitioner' in the clinical system.

The responsibilities of a named GP

The named GP is largely a role of oversight. It reassures patients they have one GP who is responsible for their care.

  • Patients do not need to see their named GP when they book an appointment with the practice.
  • Patients are entitled to choose to see any GP or nurse in the practice.
  • The named GP works with relevant health and social care professionals to deliver a multi-disciplinary care package that meets the needs of the patient.
  • The named GP ensures that these patients have access to a health check as set out in section 7.9 of the standard GMS contract.
  • The named GP will not take on 24 hour responsibility for the patient, or have to change their working hours.
Attending your appointments

It is really important that you attend your scheduled appointments at the surgery.

If it is no longer convenient or you decide you no longer need it then please let us know as early as you possibly can. Demand for appointments is very high and, with enough notice, we can usually reallocate your appointment to another patient.

Cancelling appointments with the NHS App

You can cancel any appointment via the NHS app even it was not booked online in the first place.

When a patient misses an appointment it is known as a 'Did Not Attend' (DNA).

If a patient persistently misses appointments with letting us know in advance in can harm the relationship of mutual trust with the practice. We may contact you by phone or letter to discuss this and what we can do together to improve things in the future.

Our full policy for dealing with persistent non-attendance is contained in our DNA policy

NHS zero tolerance policy

We expect to run the surgery so staff and patients are courteous and respectful to each other.

Violent or abusive behaviour undermines the mutually supportive relationship between a patient and everyone at the surgery. It will not be tolerated.

We reserve the right to issue warnings to patients who commit these types of behaviour. This can include us taking steps to have the patient removed from our list, without notice if that is appropriate to protect our staff.

Types of behaviour that are not acceptable at the surgery include:-

  • Foul or abusive language including any language that likely to cause distress to a member of staff or another patient.
  • Physical violence towards any member of or another patient.
  • Racial abuse or any form of harassment
  • Damage to property
  • Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently
We ask you to treat all of our staff courteously at all times. They have a right to work without fear of violence or abuse.
Digital exclusion

If you have access to the internet and you are comfortable using digital services then the NHS App is the easiest way to interact with the surgery.

We encourage everyone who is able to use digital services to try them out and use them whenever possible.

You can use the app to carry out many of the basic interactions liking ordering medication or cancelling an appointment.

Doing these tasks via the NHS App can save you time and also reduces the amount of adminstration for the practice.

However we will make sure that technology is not a barrier that prevents patients accessing our services. We will always try make it clear how patients can access services without using digital apps.

Equally we will work to make sure the digital apps and our website meets the required standards for accessibility.

Our Approach to Digital Engagement

We encourage all our patients to use the NHS app to interact with the surgery but will make sure thatthose who are unable to use digital apps are not prevented from accessing services.

Did Not Attend (DNA) Policy

30 Kingsway Surgery

Did not attend (DNA) Policy

Patients who do not cancel or attend their appointments has the following effect:

 

v An increase in the waiting time for other patients.

v Frustration of doctors, nurses, staff, and patients.

v A waste of time and resources.

 

It has been noticed that some patients persistently do not attend appointments.  Some of these missed appointments are “same day” appointments which means that they have only been booked a maximum of 10 hours in advance.

 

POLICY:

 

If a patient does not attend one appointment, they will be sent a DNA letter and a copy of the notice explaining the policy.

 

If they do not attend a second appointment, they will be sent a second letter together with a leaflet explaining the policy.

 

If a patient does not attend three appointments in one year.  The doctor will be informed of your failure to attend the surgery on 3 occasions and a decision will be made to decide if the patient will remain with the practice or will have to register with an alternative GP in the area.

How to avoid becoming a DNA

Should a patient need to cancel they can:

· ring 0151 928 8668, or

· come in person to the surgery, or

· ask someone else to ring or come into the surgery to cancel the appointment, or

· respond to your appointment text reminder

 

ADVANCED ACCESS IN PRIMARY CARE

Advanced Access does not mean Open Access!

Open Access can mean a long and sometimes inconvenient wait for our patients, and a stressful time for the GP, who can see his/her consultation list for that morning/afternoon growing all of the time, and therefore encouraging a hurried consultation.

Advanced Access aims to:

 

  • Provide scheduled appointments abolishing the need for differentiate between routine and urgent.
  • Address same day demand, avoiding time lag. To do today’s work today.
  • Improve the morale of both our patients and the practice team.

Review

To achieve this, we need to review ideas and implement those that have been shown to be effective.

To create an efficient working environment, matching demand to resources and to provide a quality service.

Access thus requires commitment, innovation, adaptability, and a desire to change by both our patients and the practice team.

 

Helping us to help you!

You may ask, how can we help, well firstly you must ask yourself is your problem something that you really feel needs a face-to-face consultation by a GP, or is there another port of call that may be used i.e.

  • Practice Nurse
  • Walk in centre
  • NHS direct
  • Pharmacist

Or maybe you just need to speak with the doctor, and this could be accomplished by:

 

  • Telephone consultation.

In at least half of the cases presented for face-to-face consultation, it is found that either another health professional could have helped, or telephone consultation would have been the better option for both the patient and doctor concerned.

 

By using other methods of consultation this will not only gain you a same day service but a quality service, where the GP can offer different lengths of appointment and enable us to investigate the possibility of bringing other services for you to access at the practice.

 

If you have any views or ideas that you would like to share with us, then please let us know. After all, we are in this together!