All patients are entitled to have a chaperone (someone to accompany you) for any consultation, examination or procedure where they feel one is required.This chaperone may be a family member or friend. On occasions you may prefer a formal chaperone to be present i.e. a practice nurse.

Wherever possible we would ask you to make this request at the time of booking your appointment, so that arrangements can be made and your appointment is not delayed in any way. Where this is not possible we will endeavour to provide a formal chaperone at the time of request but occasionally it may be necessary to change your appointment to another time or day.

Your healthcare professional may also require a chaperone to be present for certain consultations in accordance with our chaperone policy.

If you have any question please contact the practice manager.

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.

We always try to give you the best services possible but there may be times when you feel this has not happened.  If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working in this practice, please let us know.  We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of an NHS system for dealing with complaints.

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned.  If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible – ideally within a matter of days or at most a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.  If it is not possible to do that please let us have details of your complaint:

• within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem; or
• within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident.

Complaints should be addressed to Miss Emily Smith, Practice Manager, or any of the doctors.  Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with Miss Smith in order to discuss your concerns.  She will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.  It will be a great help if you as specific as possible about your complaint.

You can find our full complaint policy here: https://practice365.co.uk/b84021/wp-content/uploads/sites/424/2021/05/COMPLAINTS-HANDOUT-FOR-PATIENT-SEPT-23.pdf:

We hope that if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure.  We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice.  But this does not affect your right to approach our commissioners, the West Yorkshire ICB, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.

Their contact details are listed below:

WY ICB Complaints Team

White Rose House

West Parade

Wakefield

WF1 1LT

Telephone: 01924 552150 (9am-5pm Mon-Fri excl. Bank Holidays)

Email: wyicb.complaints@nhs.net

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.

Information about the General Practitioners 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 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 anonymous 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.