In accordance with the Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. You will be required to provide 2 forms of ID as part of this application; this is in line with national best practice to ensure that your confidential health record is protected.

No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

The surgery prides itself in maintaining professional standards. For certain examinations during consultations an impartial observer (a “chaperone”) will be required.

This impartial observer will be a practice nurse or health care assistant who is familiar with the procedure and be available to reassure and raise any concerns on your behalf. If a nurse in unavailable at the time of your consultation, then your examination may be re-scheduled for another time.

You are free to decline any examination or chose an alternative examiner or chaperone. You may also request a chaperone for any examination or consultation, if one is not offered to you. The GP may not undertake an examination if a chaperone is declined.

The role of a chaperone:

• Maintains professional boundaries during intimate examinations.
• Acknowledges a patient’s vulnerability.
• Provides emotional comfort and reassurance.
• Assists in the examination.
• Assists with undressing patients, if required.

If you feel that you would like to make a comment or complaint about the service we offer, please get in contact with us.

Firstly, if something is not going right whilst you are with us, tell us straight away. We want to put it right if we can.

We welcome constructive criticism. We want to hear about it if something goes wrong and if something goes well. The practice operates a practice complaints procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints.

By Letter

Surgery Manager/Practice Manager
The Humbleyard Practice
Cantley Lane
Norwich
Norfolk
NR4 6TA

Procedure

We will look into your complaint and decide how best to resolve it.

This may mean one or more of the following:

• A verbal explanation
• A written reply
• A meeting with the practice manager
• A meeting with a doctor

We will try to address your concerns with a full explanation and discuss any action which could follow.

It is our aim to answer all your questions. If there are any outstanding issues to your complaint and a resolution has not been achieved, please request a further response from the practice to address your concerns or attend a meeting to try and achieve a resolution.

If, following a second response or meeting, a resolution has still not been achieved, you can approach the Ombudsman to request that they investigate the complaint.

Alternatively, if you do not wish to make your complaint directly to the practice, you should contact Norfolk and Waveney ICB as follows:

The Complaints and Enquiries Manager
Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board
County Hall
Norwich
Martineau Lane
NR1 2DH

• Telephone: 01603 595857
• Email: [email protected]

FAO: The Complaints Manager

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman can be contacted if you are unhappy with the response you have received from either the practice or NHS England. The Ombudsman is independent of the NHS.

• Telephone: 0345 015 4033
• Website: www.ombudsman.org.uk

Care Quality Commission

They inspect GP practices to ensure they are meeting essential standards of quality and safety.

• Telephone: 03000 616 161
• Website: www.cqc.org.uk

Advocacy Service for NHS Complaints

This is a national service that supports people who want to make a complaint about their NHS care or treatment. For patients in Norfolk.

• Telephone: 0300 456 2370
• Website: www.pohwer.net

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.

All information is treated in the strictest confidence. If when you arrive at reception you would prefer to speak privately to a receptionist, please ask. We can only speak to the patient concerned to discuss their confidential medical information, including test results, so please do not ask family or friends to phone on your behalf.

However, a patient can provide written consent for a named third party to deal with their medical affairs, on their behalf.

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.

• Our Data Protection Videos
• Your Information
• Children and Young People
• What We Do with Your Information
• What Else Do We Use Your Information For?
• Sharing When Required by Law
• Secondary Use of Data
• Information Rights
• Case Finding and Profiling
• Norfolk Sharing Partners
• Information Technology
• Keeping Your Information Safe
• How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
• Our Use of CCTV
• Our Use of Telephone Recording
• Our Use of Eclipse
• Norfolk and Waveney Primary Care Networks
• Provider Processors
• Practice Processing Activities
• www.lumiradx.com/uk-en/privacy-policy

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 in The Humbleyard Practice in the last financial year was £76,669 before deductions for tax and national insurance.

This is for 1 full-time GPs, 17 part-time GPs and 1 locum GP who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.

We aim to keep our surgery clean and tidy and offer a safe environment to our patients and staff.

We are proud of our modern, purpose built practice and endeavour to keep it clean and well maintained at all times.

If you have any concerns about cleanliness or infection control, please report these to our reception staff.

Our GPs and nursing staff follow our infection control policy, to ensure the care we deliver and the equipment we use is safe.

We take additional measures to ensure we maintain the highest standards:

• Encourage staff and patients to raise any issues or report any incidents relating to cleanliness and infection control. We can discuss these and identify improvements we can make to avoid any future problems.
• Carry out an annual infection control audit to make sure our infection control procedures are working.
• Provide annual staff updates and training on cleanliness and infection control.
• Review our policies and procedures to make sure they are adequate and meet national guidance.
• Maintain the premises and equipment to a high standard within the available financial resources and ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to reduce or remove all infection risk.
• Use washable or disposable materials for items such as couch rolls, modesty curtains, floor coverings, towels etc.. We also ensure that these are laundered, cleaned or changed frequently to minimise risk of infection.
• Make alcohol hand rub gel available throughout the building.

We have allocated a named accountable GP for all of our registered patients. If you do not know who your named GP is, please ask a member of our reception team.

Unfortunately, we are unable to notify patients in writing of any change of GP, due to the costs involved.

The NHS Constitution establishes the principles and values of the NHS in England.

More information can be found on the following websites:

• GOV.UK – The NHS Constitution for England
• NHS Choices – NHS Constitution

COVID-19

Please read about how your information is being used for COVID-19 research.

Please be aware that we may use new providers or suppliers to help us quickly adapt during the outbreak and to continue your care effectively. For example, we may use a new provider for video consultations.

We may not be able to add these to our transparency materials right away, and we apologise for this but please be assured that all of our processors are bound by contract to protect your data.

During COVID-19 we may ask you to send a photograph of your bruise or skin condition that you are concerned about whilst we conduct virtual consultations. This photograph will be used by the clinician to determine any medical treatment necessary and will be added to your medical record.

Please note that as this is sent via email, it may not be secure and we therefore ask that you only include your NHS number alongside your photograph in the email. The photograph should only be of the area requested and no other person should be visible in the shot.

Your Information

Your practice takes privacy seriously and we want to provide you with information about your rights, who we share your information with and how we keep it secure.

Please use the links below to find more information about the practice and data protection:

• Our Data Protection Videos
• Your Information
• Children and Young People
• What We Do with Your Information
• What Else Do We Use Your Information For?
• Sharing When Required by Law
• Information Rights
• Case Finding and Profiling
• Norfolk Sharing Partners
• Information Technology
• Keeping Your Information Safe
• How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
• Our Use of CCTV
• Our Use of Telephone Recording
• Our Use of Eclipse
• Norfolk Primary Care Networks
• Provider Processors

There is a central NHS computer system called the summary care record (SCR).

The summary care record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses, help you when you contact them, when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

Later on as the central NHS computer system develops, (known as the summary care record), other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.

As with all new systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice.

Connecting for health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the summary care record have agreed with doctors’ leaders, that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the central NHS computer system.

For existing patients it is different, in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the central NHS computer system, unless you actively opt out.

For further information, please visit the HSCIC website.

Medical students and nursing students attend the practice from time to time. We hope that you will cooperate with us and help the students to learn about general practice.

However, you will be informed of their presence in advance and if you do not want them to be present at a consultation, your wishes will be respected. This will not affect your treatment in any way.

Along with medical students, we have GP Registrars.

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.