Practice Policies

It is the policy of the practice to offer patients a chaperone during certain examinations and procedures.

If you would like a chaperone to be present during an examination, please speak to the doctor or nurse and a chaperone will be made available to you.

At all times we will respect your privacy during the examination or procedure and whilst dressing and undressing.

Please download our Freedom of Information Policy below

VMP-FOI-Mar-2022

Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group
Building A, The APEX
St. Cross Business Park
Newport, Isle of Wight
PO30 5XW

Tel: IOW 552 064
www.Isleofwightccg.nhs.uk

NHS England
South East Regional Team
Oakley Road
Southampton
SO16 4GX

Tel: 023 80296914
www.nhs.uk/services

Isle of Wight County Council
Customer Service Centre
County Hall, High Street
Newport, Isle of Wight
PO30 1UD

Tel: IOW 821 000
www.iwight.com

Patient Rights & Responsibilities

Users of the National Health Service have rights. The following explains what they are. They fall into three main categories.

Legislated Rights

Rights that have been written into law by means of Parliamentary Acts or Bills. (For example, UK GDPR and DPA 2018). As a patient of the NHS you have 7 rights.

• You are entitled to receive health care on the basis of clinical need, regardless of your income.
• You are entitled to be registered with a Medical practice. You are entitled to change your practice at any time. You do not have to give a reason for your decision.
• You are legally entitled to accept or refuse treatment as you see fit. This includes examinations, tests, diagnostic procedures, medication, operations, etc.
• You can refuse to be involved in research trials. If you do not agree to be involved in research trials, you can withdraw at any time.
• You are entitled to equal treatment regardless of race, gender, age or disability.
• You have a right to information on GP practices in your area and the services they provide. All practices must provide an information leaflet.
• You have a right to confidentiality. Personal information about your health is confidential and should only be disclosed to those who need that information to provide you with effective treatment, you can consent to share with other individuals outside of the NHS

Access to your Health Records.

You have a legal entitlement to see a copy of the records held about you. All records stored on computer can be accessed. If you wish to see your records you should apply in to the practice for a Subject Access Request.

Guideline Rights

• You are entitled to have reasonable access to high quality service and facilities.
• You are entitled to information on what is wrong with you and the treatment options available. Ask questions. You should be given truthful, clear answers.
• You are entitled to ask for a second opinion on your diagnosis or treatment.
• You can ask to have someone with you (friend, relative, interpreter) at any time. You may find this beneficial, particularly if you are asking questions or need moral support.

Human Rights

It is your right to be treated as a human being by another human being and as they would wish to be treated themselves, i.e. with dignity, politeness, respect and consideration. These may not necessarily be covered legally or even be contained in guidelines, but human rights will come into many of the areas mentioned above and are certainly just as important.

Consent

A doctor, nurse, or anyone else looking after your health, has to have your agreement before they can examine or treat you. This policy applies to both children and adults. Your consent will be sought before any of your information is shared with any individual not connected with your direct health care.

Patient Responsibilities

Patients, too, have certain responsibilities:

• Keeping appointments:  Please try to arrive on time. If you are unable to attend an appointment, please inform the clinic or surgery in good time. Address. If you move house, change address or telephone number, or the postcode is changed, please inform your GP practice or outpatient clinic.
• Treat all healthcare staff in a reasonable, courteous manner.
• Use emergency services in a responsible manner. Please use the out-of-hours services for emergencies only and not for routine care.
• Take care with medicines. Medicines are for one person only and should not be shared. Keep them safely away from children and in the original container. Take any unwanted medicines to a chemist for safe disposal.

The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The Practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. The staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

-Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
-Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
-Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
-Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
-Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
-Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
-Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.

Removal from the practice list
A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

Removing other members of the household
In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.