Policies and Procedures

Your rights as a patient are enshrined the NHS Constitution. You can read them here.

You can also read your responsibilities as a patient here.

We are committed to providing a safe, comfortable environment, where the safety of staff and patients is of paramount importance.

When experiencing consultations, examinations and investigations, patients need to be safe and experience as little discomfort and distress as possible. You can ask your doctor or a receptionist for a chaperone if you would like one to be present at any part of a consultation or examination.

When you make your appointment you can also ask to see a female or male doctor or nurse if you would prefer. We will do our best to arrange this for you.

For face-to-face appointments, you will receive a reminder text message prior to your appointment. If you no longer need your appointment or want to reschedule it, you can do so by:

• Replying “CANCEL” to your reminder text message.
• Contacting your Surgery.

Most of our patients attend their appointments. If you do not attend your appointment, we will contact you in writing. If you DNA three appointments in a 12-month period, we will consider:

• Restricting you to same day appointment bookings.
• Removing you from the Practice.

We value all patient feedback. If you have any concerns with the level of service you have received please contact the Surgery in writing or you can email the complaints and communications team directly using patientservices.scmg@dorsetgp.nhs.uk.

You can find NHS England’s Freedom of Information Policy here.

We are bound by legislation relating to the confidentiality of medical records.

These rules are designed to protect all patients and to prevent the release of your personal information to anyone other than yourself.

These rules mean that we cannot divulge any information about you to anyone other than yourself.

If you do wish for us to divulge information about you to a third party then we must have your written consent and authorisation to do so in advance and identifying which information might be released. If you are using an insurance or financial services broker to apply for loans or insurance cover please provide the practice with written consent to speak to the adviser as well as the mortgage/insurance loan company.

Please do not ask us to give you information about anyone else; we are not permitted to do so.

You can find our summary Privacy Policies here.

You can find NHS England’s Safeguarding Children, Young People and Adults at Risk Policy here.

We have a duty to look after not only the Practice patients, but also members of Practice staff. No member of staff will tolerate abusive or violent behaviour at any time. This includes shouting or swearing, offensive remarks, harassment, threatening behaviour, actual assault, damage to employees’ or employer’s property or belongings or attack on members of the Practice staff or public. Failure to comply with this may result in a patient being removed from the Practice list and the police being called.