Practice Charter

WHAT YOU SHOULD REASONABLY EXPECT FROM OUR PRACTICE

• To treat all patients with care, courtesy and respect and not to discriminate against any patient upon any grounds.
• A right to privacy and confidentiality at all times.
• To aim to ensure a patient is seen by a GP or Healthcare professional within 48 hours.
• To work with our patients, NELFT, Waltham Forest CCG .PCN and all outside agencies to improve the quality of service to our patient community.
• To see you at your designated appointment time.However, delays may occur.  Please be patient.
• A consultation where the Doctor will provide you with the necessary information relating to your problem, this may include a medical examination and/or investigation.
• A repeat prescription service, where repeat prescriptions should be requested in writing and processed within 48 hours.
• A Home Visiting service, which is specifically for patients that are unable to get to surgery through illness.
• An ‘Out of Hours’ service provided by Fednet on 020 8519 3999
• The practice, in accordance with the NHS Zero Tolerance policy, does not accept any physical or verbal abuse to clinicians or staff.
• If you wish to obtain access to your medical file, you must in the first instance write to the Practice Manager who will give you an appointment for the viewing.
• Another member of staff will sit with you and you may take photocopies if you require, a nominal charge will be made for the copies.
• To address and investigate all concerns and/or complaints with regard to this surgery and review current practice, should it prove necessary, in order to review ‘Best Practice’.
• This practice has a separate complaints leaflet for patients, which is available on request.
• This practice has a protocol to remove patients from the patient list, which can be accessed by written application from the Practice Manager.
• If you need to contact the Healthcare Commission, with any enquiry regarding a complaint or the way a complaint has been handled, details are listed below with a map and directions.

WHAT THE DOCTORS AND STAFF REASONABLY EXPECT FROM YOU

• We expect the patient to treat Doctors and Practice staff with the same courtesy and respect and not to discriminate upon any grounds.
• If you are unable to keep an appointment, please cancel it as soon as possible to enable someone else to be seen. A patient who fails to attend their appointments will be written to and may be removed from the patient list.
• If you require a home visit, please telephone the surgery before 10.30am. A GP will screen the requests and only grant visits to people with permanent disability, elderly or with an acute medical condition where the patient is unable to get to surgery.
• Please use  ‘Out of hours’ service for an acute medical emergency that cannot wait until the next morning.
• Remember, a general appointment slot is for 10 minutes, if you have several things to discuss, please book a double appointment.
• Please telephone the surgery after 11.00am for any test result or other non-urgent enquiries.