Practice Policies & Patient Information

About Us

Beechcroft Surgery is located in the residential suburb of Costessey, opposite the Barley Court Residential accommodation. The surgery premises has an attached pharmacy, NHS dentist and available car parking.

Old Palace Medical Practice is based in a building converted from the Alexandra Public House in 1998. It is situated on the west side of Norwich on Old Palace Road, just off Dereham Road. It has limited car parking facilities on site, however four hour parking is available on Old Palace Road and on Armes Street opposite.

Accessing the practice

Chaperones

Confidentiality

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 NHS 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 Contact the Practice online.

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 GPs 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.

There are seven classes of information:

Who we are and what we do
What we spend and how we spend it
What our priorities are and how we are doing
How we make decisions
Our policies and procedures
Lists and registers
Services the practice offers

For more information, please review the Information Commissioner’s Office guide on the https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-freedom-of-information/what-is-the-foi-act/.

GDPR/Privacy Notices

GP Earnings

All GP Practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver GP services to patients at each Practice.

The average pay for GPs working at The Coastal Partnership in the last financial year was £86,582 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 7 full time GPs, 16 part time GPs and 2 locum GPs who worked in the Practice for more than six months.

However, 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 another Practice.

Named GP

Named GP Policy

Under the terms of our contract, we are required by the Government to allocate all patients a Named Accountable GP (“Named GP”). Patients will be assigned to you based on your last (family) name If you do not know your Named GP, simply contact our reception staff at your normal surgery.

New patients will be allocated a Named GP at the time of their registration with the Practice.

Having a Named GP does not prevent you seeing any other doctor in your surgery, and of course, your Named GP may not be available all of the time. So, if your needs are urgent, you may need to discuss them with another doctor and/or make an appointment with them instead.

Your Named GP will have overall responsibility for the care and support that our Practice provides to you. They will also work with other relevant healthcare professionals, who are involved in your care, to ensure that your care package meets your individual needs.

Your Named GP will:

Take lead responsibility for ensuring that all appropriate services required under the contract with the Practice are delivered to you.
Where required, based on their professional judgement, work with relevant associated health and social care professionals to deliver a multidisciplinary care package that meets your needs.
Ensure that your physical and psychological needs are recognised and responded to by the relevant clinicians in the Practice.

Your Named GP will Not:

Take on vicarious responsibility for the work of other doctors or healthcare professionals.
Take on 24-hour responsibility for you, or have to change their working hours. Thus, this requirement does not imply personal availability to GPs throughout the working week.
Be the only clinician who will provide you with care.

You may, if you wish, change your Named GP to a GP of your choice (at the same surgery), and this can be accomplished by contacting our reception staff at your normal surgery. However, please remember that changing your Named GP will not affect the care that you receive.

Non NHS Services & Fees

Examinations for special purposes (e.g. insurance, fitness to undertake sports, HGV, PSV, and seat belt exemptions), reports for private health insurance, private certificates and some vaccinations, are not provided under the National Health Service and are undertaken outside normal surgery hours.

The fees charged are based on the British Medical Association (BMA) suggested scales and our reception staff will be happy to advise you about them.

Suggestions, Comments and Complaints

We appreciate all feedback, whether positive or negative, and do our best to use it to improve our services. Please provide us with feedback online or if you’re interested in being more involved, you can find out more about joining the Patient Participation Group.

Practice Complaints Procedure

We operate a Practice Complaints Procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our procedure meets national criteria. Complaint Forms are available from our Reception Staff, explaining the process and includes a form to complete.

If you feel you need to complain we hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, preferably at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be resolved in this way and you wish to make a more formal complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible, ideally within a matter of days, or at the most a few weeks, as this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.

Complaints can be sent to the Complaints Team in the following ways:

Emailed to – nwicb.complaints.coastalpartnership@nhs.net

Posted to the following address – Complaints Team, The Windmill Surgery, London Rd, Wymondham NR18 0AF

It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

Mechanism for dealing with a complaint

We shall aim to acknowledge your complaint within three working days. We will endeavour to find out the circumstances surrounding your complaint. We can then agree a plan on how your complaint will be dealt with and the timescales involved. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting with the practice manager.

Who do I contact?

We hope that if you have a concern, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of correcting whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice.

If you have a genuine concern about a staff member or regulated activity carried out by this practice then you can contact the Care Quality Commission on 0300 061 6161 or visit their website at www.cqc.org.uk.

You can also speak to NHS England who will take up the complaint on your behalf. They can be contacted on 0300 311 2233 or by emailing england.contactus@nhs.net.

If the practice or NHS England response does not resolve your complaint, you can contact the NHS Ombudsman. They can be contacted on 0345 015 4033 or via their website at www.ombudsman.org.uk.

PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) are also there to assist with advice, support and information on health related matters for patients, their families and carers.

Summary Care Records

There is a central NHS computer system called the summary care record (SCR). It is an electronic record which contains information about the medicines you take, allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines you have had. Over time it will build to include information about other health issues considered important to your wellbeing.

Why do I need a summary care record?

Storing information in one place makes it easier for healthcare staff to treat you in an emergency, or when your GP practice is closed.

This information could make a difference to how a doctor decides to care for you, for example which medicines they choose to prescribe for you.

Who can see it?

Only healthcare staff involved in your care can see your summary care record.

How do I know if I have one?

Over half of the population of England now have a summary care record. You can find out whether summary care records have come to your area by asking the surgery directly.

Enhanced summary care record

If you wanted to ‘enhance’ your record it would include the following information:

Significant medical history (past and present)
Reason for medication
Anticipatory care information (important in the management of long term conditions)
Communication preferences
End of life care information
Immunisations

You can opt in for an enhanced summary care record at any time.

Children under the age of 16

Patients under 16 years will have an enhanced summary care record created for them unless their GP surgery is advised otherwise. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16 then you should make this information available to them if they are old enough to decide for themselves if they want a summary care record.

Whatever you decide, you can change your mind at any time.

If you are a family member or carer of a person and you have concerns that they may not have the mental capability to make this decision, please contact the practice online.

Do I have to have one?

No, it is not compulsory. If you choose to opt out of the scheme, then you will need to complete the Summary Care Record Opt Out form.

More information

For further information please visit the HSCIC Website.

The Coastal Partnership FoIA Publication Scheme

Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) 2000

Guide to information provided by GPs under the Model Publication Scheme.

Introduction

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires all public authorities to adopt and maintain a publication scheme.

In 2008, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) introduced a single generic model publication scheme, for adoption by all public authorities that are subject to the FoIA.

The model publication scheme commits a public authority to “produce and publish the method by which the specific information will be available so that it can be easily identified and accessed by members of the public”. This is a very general scheme based on the principle that all public authorities need to recognise the public interest in the transparency of the services provided and paid for by the general public. It is a commitment to make information easily available to the public.

General Practitioners (GPs), providing primary medical services under most contracts with the NHS in England and Wales and with HSC Northern Ireland, are public authorities in respect of information relating to those services.

The Freedom of Information Act gives the public the right to ask for certain information held by public authorities, such as the NHS (and including GP practices), and allows members of the public to see information about how public services are developed and delivered.

The practice and The Freedom of Information Act

In line with the FoIA, and our status as a GP surgery, we operate a publication scheme providing information about the Practice and the services that we provide. Information covered by this scheme is only about the general medical services that we provide under contract to the National Health Service.

Charges for information requests and information

All documents and information we make available free of charge under this Scheme are identified in the table with “no cost”.

All documents available under this Scheme for which we may charge a fee are identified as “In accordance with FoIA request Fees & Regulations”.

Information/text taken from our Practice website is available free of charge, but remain the copyright of the Practice.

Third party leaflets may also be available for download from our website too, and they remain the property of their respective copyright holders.

There may be a charge for you to access our website (from your internet service provider), in addition to personal printing costs, which would have to be met by you.

If you do not have internet access, we would be able to provide printouts and send them via the post or make them available at a surgery to collect. There would be a cost for printing and postage, if applicable.

You may also be able to access the internet through your local community, from a library, friends, neighbours, etc., but any associated costs for such access or any printing/duplication must be met by you.

Be especially careful to secure your data if you use other parties’ internet access with online patient services, medical record retrieval, printing of your medical record or any other personal information.

For all printing/duplication carried out by the Practice, each single sheet printed on one side is charged at £0.25; each single sheet printed on both sides is charged at £0.35.

We will generally produce documents printed on both sides of the sheet to save money and paper. However, some documents not created by us, or originating in other systems, may be single sided (printed on one side only).

Copies of audits, reports, etc. attract a one-off administration fee of £25 (plus the per sheet printing/duplication charge, as outlined above).

A request for multiple printouts or copies of a single document or report, and for archived copies of documents which are no longer easily accessible or available, may attract an additional administration fee for their retrieval and/or duplication. We will let you know if this is the case and the charges that will have to be paid.

Any postage costs are charged at their prevailing (Royal Mail) face value, and we use their “Special Delivery” service for sending requested information. A signature is required for this delivery service to receive your information.

Royal Mail generally review their prices annually in March, so this in turn will affect our postage costs to you. Current Royal Mail charges will prevail at all times (at the point of sending information) irrespective of when the information request was made.

We will only send information to the address given on the verified originator’s information request, and, if you are a patient, the address must match that of your patient record.

You may also collect the information in person from one of our sites. You will be required to provide appropriate identification as the originator of the information request, if you collect the information in person. We will not release information to a third party without good reason or authority (lasting power of attorney for example).

Please note that we will not provide printouts of others’ copyrighted information, other organisations’ websites, or any other forms of their information or data.

Wherever a charge is applicable, it (including all administration, printing/duplication and postage costs) must be paid in advance of the release of information.

All our charges are reviewed annually, in line with this document, and the Freedom of Information Act request Fees & Regulations.

Class 1: Who we are and what we do

Cost of obtaining

No Cost

Partners

Dr Richard Hems
Dr Khalid Aziz
Dr Ardyn Ross
Dr Rachel Thomson

Salaried GPs

Dr Temitayo Adegun
Dr Claire Blake
Dr Stuart Burgess
Dr Wendy Clark
Dr Kevin D’Mello
Dr Gary Dalton
Dr Thomas Flahive
Dr Navin Ghosh
Dr Ian Gibson
Dr Jo Honney
Dr Mary Howman
Dr Mia Krywawych
Dr Subhash Patel
Dr Jasmine Thomas
Dr Andrew Thompson
Dr Hilary Burgess
Dr Rachel Thomson
Dr Temitayo Adegun
Dr Subhash Patel

Key staff

John Broughton (Finance Manager)
Sheila Pink (Operations Manager)
Mary Weatherstone (Practice Pharmacist)
Nic Woods (IT Manager)

Clinical staff

We also employ nurses, specialist nurses, nurse practitioners, clinical pharmacists, paramedics and health care assistants across all our sites.

Admin staff

We additionally employ receptionists, practice administrators, medical secretaries, finance administrators and dispensary staff.

Other staff

Cleaners
Buildings and maintenance
Delivery driver

Indirect staff

Health visitors
Community staff (district nurses, midwives)
Diabetic specialists
Alcohol/drug specialists
Locums

Site/Surgery details

Our practice booklet is available at any surgery.

Hemsby Medical Centre, 1 Kings Court, Hemsby, NR29 4EW

Tel: 01493 730 449

Ormesby Village Surgery
Pippin Close
Ormesby
NR29 3RW Tel: 01493 730 205

Martham Medical Centre
Hemsby Road
Martham
NR29 4QG

Tel: 01493 748 833

North Caister Surgery
Branford Road
Caister-On-Sea
NR30 5NE

Tel: 01493 720 618

Old Palace Surgery
148 Old Palace Road
Norwich
NR2 4JA

Tel: 01603 663 363

Beechcroft Surgery
23 Beechcroft
New Costessey
NR5 0RS

Tel: 01603 746 683

Windmill Surgery
London Road
Wymondham
NR18 0AF

Tel: 01953 607 607

Opening hours

08:00 to 13:00/13:30/17:30/18:00/18:30/19:00/20:00

Monday to Friday, depending on the site and day of the week.

Extended and Improved Access for late evening (weekdays) and early morning (weekends).

Class 2: What we spend and how we spend it

We receive payments in relation to our General Medical Services (GMS) and Personal Medical Services (PMS) contracts, which are held with the three Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) our 8 surgeries fall under: Great Yarmouth and Waveney; Norwich and South Norfolk.

In addition, we also receive income from other sources such as Enhanced Services (ES) and also other non NHS work and fees.

We hold meetings at local (site/surgery) level, organisational unit (i.e. CCG) level, at whole Practice level and also at strategic Business (i.e. Partners’) level. Attendees are recorded, together with minutes of the meetings.

Meeting type

Business/Partners

Attendees (frequency):

Partners and the senior management team (monthly)
Partners (weekly).

Strategic team

Senior management team, Partner process lead, other administrative leads as required (e.g. quality lead) (monthly).

Site leads

The reception/site lead from each site, IT Manager (quarterly).

Site

All site (local) staff (monthly).

MDT

Doctors, nurses, community, MH teams (monthly, or as required by needs).

Nurse

All nurses and HCAs, IT Manager (monthly).

Education

Open to all staff (weekly).

Decisions affecting the Practice and its commercial operation are agreed by the Partners at the monthly Business meetings, with decisions evidenced in minutes. These decisions (including confidential or commercially sensitive information) may be shared with key personnel in the Practice, but will not be disclosed publicly and is outside of the scope of this publication Scheme. Other minutes, without confidential information, may be made available on application to the Business Manager.

How you can obtain this information

Request in writing, to our Business Manager.

Cost of obtaining

In accordance with FoIA request Fees & Regulations.

Class 5: Our policies and procedures

Customer Service

Carers policy and carer tool kit Communication
Complaints procedure Constitution for PPG
Emergency telephone handling protocol
Identifying patient needs and new registration protocol Patient dignity and respect

Internal instructions to staff relating to the delivery of services

Advance directives protocol forms leaflet
Call and recall
Cervical smear defaulters Cervical smear procedure Chaperone
Codes of conduct Complaints procedure Computer failure policy Consent for vaccination
Consent for video recording for assessment purposes Consent policy including child consent
Consultations protocol Continuity of care
Declining national screening
Disaster planning and business continuity Discharge from hospital
End of life policy patient charter and advance care plan Equipment loan protocol
Minor surgery policy
New guidance protocol
New patient flow chart Palliative care policy Practice development plan Practice policy for DNAs Preconceptual advice
Protocol for maintenance of patient demographic information Patient isolation protocol
Specimen handling
Telephone consultation process Test results protocol
Workforce planning

Recruitment and employment of staff

Access to occupational health
Age discrimination act Application form
CRB and consent form Equal opportunities policy HR policy statement Induction policy
Practice procedures and checks to prevent illegal working Safeguarding vulnerable adults and children policy
Staff confidentiality Staff handbook

Equality and diversity

Age discrimination
Bulling and harassment policy Equal opportunities
Equality act operational procedures policy Mental capacity act
Sickness and capability

Health and safety

Calibration and maintenance of equipment
Cleaning disinfection of equipment surfaces and environment skin policy Clinical waster protocol
Fire safety policy Hand hygiene policy
Health and safety policy Hepatitis B policy Infection control policy Needle stick injury
Risk assessment policy
Safety alert protocol and procedure Staff uniform policy
VDU risk assessment Waste management policy

Complaints procedure

Complaints procedure and leaflet

Records management (records retention, destruction and archive)

Backup of computer data protocol
Caldecott protocol Clinical governance policy
Computer and data security procedure Disposal of confidential waste Scanning protocol
Summarising policy
Third party confidentiality agreement

Data protection

Backup of computer data protocol Caldecott protocol
Computer and data security procedure Data Breach
Electronic transfer of patient data Home access policy
Information governance Information security Media handling
Sharing, disclosure of patient information Smart card policy
Staff confidentiality
Third party confidentiality agreement

Handling requests for information

Caldecott
Communication
FoIA publication scheme (this document) Data protection act & GDPR
Information governance Media handling

Please note that the same policy may appear in more than one section, depending on its context.

How you can obtain this information

Request in writing, to our Business Manager.

Cost of obtaining

In accordance with FoIA request Fees & Regulations.

Class 6: Lists and registers

To successfully deliver patient care, administer long term conditions and to provide a first class service, we manage and maintain lists and registers of our patients.

These lists are strictly confidential and contain patient identifiable information. As such, they are not available for public inspection or scrutiny and are therefore outside of the scope of this publication scheme.

How you can obtain this information

Not applicable.

Cost of obtaining

Not applicable.

Class 7: The services we offer

Under our GMS or PMS contracts with the NHS, we offer (at no cost):

Alcohol and drugs advice and support
Asthma clinics and chronic obstructive disease clinics (COPD)
Baby clinics
Cervical cytology screening
Child health surveillance
Childhood vaccinations and immunisations
Contraceptive services, IUD/IUS fitting/removal
Diabetes clinics
Ear syringing
ECGs (electrical heart trace)
Flu immunisation and routine adult immunisations
GP consultations
Home visits
Maternity services (midwife)
Medication review
Minor surgery procedures
NHS and new patient health checks
Nurse consultations
Nursing home visits
Phlebotomy
Smoking cessation advice and support
Spirometry (lung/breathing) clinics
Telephone triage
Travel advice and immunisations
Wound management / dressings / suture removal

How you can obtain this information

Through our practice websites.

Our practice booklet is available at any surgery.

Cost

No cost.

Class 7: The services we offer (continued)

We also provide non-NHS services, which are chargeable.

These services may be payable by the patient directly, by solicitors, by insurance companies or other third parties requesting this information for, about or on behalf of a patient.

There is a list charges for these services. These services include:

Patients

Copies of medical records (unless where covered under a Data Subject Access Request)
Fitness certificates
Holiday cancellation claim forms
Letters requested by, or on behalf of, the patient Non-NHS vaccinations
Private medical insurance reports and medicals Private appointments and treatments
Private sickness notes
Sports, pre-employment, taxi and HGV medicals Vaccination certificates

Other (e.g. solicitors, insurance co.)

Copies of medical records for medical insurance purposes (unless where covered under a Data Subject Access Request)
Private medical insurance reports
Some examinations for local authority employees

How you can obtain this information

Available from any surgery reception.

Cost

No cost for the list (but charges apply for the services).

Class 7: The services we offer (continued)

We also provide lots of free information, self-help, “what to do if” and leaflets on our website, through links to other websites (NHS, NHC Choices, etc.) and within our surgeries themselves.

When our surgeries are closed (e.g. out of hours, weekends, bank holidays, training days, etc.) a phone answering service is provided by the NHS 111 Service.

This can be accessed by dialling 111 from any landline or mobile phone, and is free to call.

In an emergency or life threatening situations (e.g. chest pain, difficulty breathing), patients should immediately dial 999 whether our surgeries are open or closed.

How you can obtain this information

Our practice booklet is available at any surgery.

Cost

No cost.

Your Data Matters to the NHS

Information about your health and care helps us to improve your individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan your local services and research new treatments. The NHS is committed to keeping patient information safe and always being clear about how it is used.

How your data is used

Your health and care information is used to improve your individual care. It is also used to help us research new treatments, decide where to put GP clinics and plan for the number of doctors and nurses in your local hospital. Wherever possible we try to use data that does not identify you, but sometimes it is necessary to use your confidential patient information.

What is confidential patient information?

Confidential patient information identifies you and says something about your health, care or treatment. You would expect this information to be kept private.

Information that only identifies you like your name and address is not confidential patient information and may still be used. For example, to contact you if your GP practice is merging with another.

Who can use your confidential patient information for research and planning?

It is used by the NHS, local authorities, university and hospital researchers, medical colleges and pharmaceutical companies researching new treatments.

Making your data opt out choice

You can choose to opt out of sharing your confidential patient information for research and planning. There may still be times when your confidential patient information is used. For example, during an epidemic where there might be a risk to you or to other people’s health. You can also still consent to take part in a specific research project.

Will Choosing This Opt Out Affect Your Care and Treatment?

No, choosing to opt out will not affect how information is used to support your care and treatment. You will still be invited for screening services, such as screenings for bowel cancer.

What should you do next?

You do not need to do anything if you are happy about how your confidential patient information is used.

To find out more about the benefits of data sharing, how data is protected, or to make or change your opt out choice, visit the NHS website.

Zero Tolerance

The NHS operates 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.

Practice Policies & Patient Information

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