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.

Introduction

This policy is designed to protect both patients and staff from abuse or allegations of abuse and to assist patients to make an informed choice about their examinations and consultations.

Guidelines

Clinicians (male and female) should consider whether an intimate or personal examination of the patient (either male or female) is justified, or whether the nature of the consultation poses a risk of misunderstanding.

• The clinician should give the patient a clear explanation of what the examination will involve.
• Always adopt a professional and considerate manner – be careful with humour as a way of relaxing a nervous situation as it can easily be misinterpreted.
• Always ensure that the patient is provided with adequate privacy to undress and dress.
• Ensure that a suitable sign is clearly on display in each consulting or treatment room offering the chaperone service.

This should remove the potential for misunderstanding. However, there will still be times when either the clinician, or the patient, feels uncomfortable, and it would be appropriate to consider using a chaperone.  Patients who request a chaperone should never be examined without a chaperone being present. If necessary, where a chaperone is not available, the consultation/examination should be rearranged for a mutually convenient time when a chaperone can be present.

Complaints and claims have not been limited to doctors treating/examining patients of the opposite gender – there are many examples of alleged assault by female and male doctors on people of the same gender.

Consideration should also be given to the possibility of a malicious accusation by a patient.

There may be occasions when a chaperone is needed for a home visit.  The following procedure should still be followed.

Who Can Act as a Chaperone?

 A variety of people can act as a chaperone in the practice, but staff undertaking a formal chaperone role must have been trained in the competencies required. Where possible, it is strongly recommended that chaperones should be clinical staff familiar with procedural aspects of personal examination. Where suitable clinical staff members are not available, the examination should be deferred.

Where the practice determines that non-clinical staff will act in this capacity, the patient must agree to the presence of a non-clinician in the examination, and be at ease with this. The staff member should be trained in the procedural aspects of personal examinations, comfortable in acting in the role of chaperone, and be confident in the scope and extent of their role. They will have received instruction on where to stand and what to watch and instructions to that effect will be laid down in writing by the practice.

Confidentiality

•       The chaperone should only be present for the examination itself, and most discussion with the patient should take place while the chaperone is not present.
•      Patients should be reassured that all practice staff understand their responsibility not to divulge confidential information.

Click here to link to the latest GMC guidelines for intimate examinations:

www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/21170.asp

PROCEDURE

•       The clinician will contact reception to request a chaperone.
•      Where no chaperone is available, a clinician may offer to delay the examination to a date when one will be available, as long as the delay would not have an adverse effect on the patient’s health.
•      If a clinician wishes to conduct an examination with a chaperone present but the patient does not agree to this, the clinician must clearly explain why they want a chaperone to be present. The clinician may choose to consider referring the patient to a colleague who would be willing to examine them without a chaperone, as long as the delay would not have an adverse effect on the patient’s health.
•      The clinician will record in the notes that the chaperone is present, and identify the chaperone.
•      The chaperone will enter the room discreetly and remain in the room until the clinician has finished the examination.
•      The chaperone will attend inside the curtain/screened-off area at the head of the examination couch and observe the procedure.
•      To prevent embarrassment, the chaperone should not enter into conversation with the patient or GP unless requested to do so, or make any mention of the consultation afterwards.
•       The chaperone will make a record in the patient’s notes after examination. The record will state that there were no problems, or give details of any concerns or incidents that occurred. The chaperone must be aware of the procedure to follow if they wish to raise concerns.
•      The patient can refuse a chaperone, and if so this must be recorded in the patient’s medical record.

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.

Alternatively:  From 1st April 2023 you can now contact Nottingham ICB 

Via Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0115 8839570 or By post: Patient Experience Team, Civic Centre, Arnot Hill Park, Nottingham Road, Arnold, Nottingham, NG5 6LU

If you would like further information please follow the link to the ICB website: Patient Experience and Complaints – NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB

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.

Consent must be voluntary and informed if it is to be deemed valid, whilst the person consenting must have the capacity to do so. Clinicians must respect the decision of an adult who has the capacity to make a voluntary and informed decision, regardless of the consequences.  If, however, an adult does not have capacity, clinicians can administer treatment if it is in the best interest of the patient. In such instances, clinicians should seek guidance from the patient’s relatives or friends.

Click here to view our Consent Guidance 

The practice will not share personal identifiable data and or other confidential data about patients to support the planning of NHS and social care services, without seeking explicit patient consent to do this.

However, the Practice may share data about patients in a non-personal format (either anonymised* or pseudonymised) in order to support the planning of NHS and social care services. This data will only be used for health and social planning purposes and not for any other purposes (such as commercial, insurance or marketing purposes) Sharing of such data will be managed in accordance to a formal sharing arrangement and under tight Information Governance controls.

*Anonymisation: is the process of rendering data into a form which does not identify individuals or makes the risk of re-identification sufficiently low in a particular context that does not constitute personal data.

Information about the General Practioners 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.

The average pay for a GP’s working at the Meadows Health Centre in the last financial year before TAX and NI was £67,027 before tax and national insurance

This was for 2 full time GP’s and 1 part time locum GP who worked in practice for more than 6 months

All practices are required to declare the mean (average) earnings for GP’s working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

It should be noted that the prescribed method for 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 to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.

Please see here for our annual Infection control statement.

Please click on the links below to read our Privacy Notices

Covid19 Privacy Notice – Updated August 2023

Meadows Health Centre Privacy Notice (updated September 23)

GDPR Children Privacy Notice

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.