Practice Charter

 

We aim to treat our patients courteously at all times and expect our patients to treat our staff in a similarly respectful way. It is your responsibility to keep your appointments, inform us of your past illnesses, medication, hospital admissions and any other relevant details.

 

Our Responsibilities

  • Waiting time - Consultations with the nurse or doctor are by appointment only. Except in exceptional circumstances you should expect to be seen within 30 minutes of your appointment time. If you have to wait longer than 30 minutes we will endeavour to advise you as to why this is.
  • Home visits - Home visits are carried out at the discretion of the doctors and clinical need.
  • Access to the doctors - You should expect to be able to be seen by a Doctor or Nurse for urgent queries on the same day.
  • Repeat Prescriptions - To ensure effective access for emergency calls, we do not accept requests for repeat prescriptions over the phone. Requests for repeat prescriptions will be processed in 7 working days
  • Test Results - Please telephone the surgery after 11:00am Monday-Friday for the results of your tests.
  • Patient Feedback - Complaints should be directed to the Practice Manager. We want to be sure to continue to improve our services to you. Any constructive suggestions are more than welcome. Always remember, this is your surgery, so help us to improve the service we offer to you.
  • Removal from our list - We have a right to remove patients from our lists if they repeatedly and persistently ignore their responsibilities to us and other patients.

Your Responsibilities

  • Appointments - Please try to keep your appointments and be punctual. If you cannot attend please tell us as soon as possible so your appointment can then be offered to someone else.
  • Home Visits - The less time a Doctor spends traveling, the more time is available for patients. Please do not ask for a home visit unless it is strictly necessary.
  • Repeat Prescriptions - Please order your prescriptions on-line or use your printed prescription token (see Repeat Prescriptions for further details). We do not take requests over the telephone.
  • Test Results - Results of tests take varying times to return to the Surgery. When having a test please ask how long the results are likely to take to return.

Zero Tolerance

Patients attending the practice, whether in person or by telephone should behave in a manner that respects the rights of others including practice staff and other patients. Bad language, offensive remarks or threatening behavior will be deemed unacceptable and the practice reserves the right to remove patients from the list if they are abusive or violent in any way. Patients are requested to respect practice premises at all times.

Patient Rights

You have the right to receive medical care from a suitably qualified medical practitioner. This will usually be by appointment with your preferred Doctor, but may be with another Doctor or an alternative professional such as a Paramedic, Clinical Pharmacist, Physician Associate or Practice Nurse.

The Department of Health now require that all patients are registered with a Practice rather than with an individual Doctor. However, you may request to be seen by a particular Doctor, providing that Doctor is available and is accepting new patients.

You may request to be seen by a Doctor of a specific gender in particular circumstances and we will endeavour to arrange this for you.

You have the right to refuse to be examined in the presence of a student.

You have a right to request to have a Chaperone present during an intimate examination although this may, on occasion, mean that you would need to make a further appointment at another time.

You may be seen at home if you are unable to attend the practice for a particular reason. You may be asked about your circumstances and the Doctor may decide that you should attend the practice instead.
You have the right to refuse treatment or examination although a Doctor may give essential treatment if a patient is considered to be incapable of understanding or giving consent.

You have a right under GDPR in conjunction with the Data Protection Act 2018 to request access to view or to obtain copies of what information the practice holds about you and to have it amended should it be inaccurate. To request this, you need to do the following:

  • Your request should be made to the Practice - for information from the hospital you should write direct to them
  • There is no charge to have a copy of the information held about you
  • We are required to respond to you within one month
  • You will need to give adequate information (for example full name, address, date of birth, NHS number and details of your request) so that your identity can be verified, and your records located.

At Riverside Medical Practice, we believe that best medical care is delivered by a team of colleagues and this may mean that information about you will be shared with those colleagues if appropriate. This team includes some staff working with attached agencies (e.g. Podiatrists, Health Visitors, Pharmacist or hospital staff to whom you are being referred).