Information

Patients' Rights & Responsibilities

You have the right to:

Register and receive treatment regardless of your age, sex or sexuality, ethnic origin, religious beliefs, disability or nature of your health problems as long as you reside within the practice boundaries and qualify for NHS treatment. Details of the practice boundary can be obtained from the reception staff.

• Consult with a GP within 24 hours for urgent medical problems.
• Access a doctor outwith normal surgery hours.
• Have your treatment explained to you.
• Confidentiality.
• Receive information on health services.
• Gain access to an interpreter.
• Complain, without discrimination, if there is a problem.
• Have a relative or friend with you (except in extreme cases when specifically asked not to).

You are responsible for:

• Making and keeping appointments. Please notify the surgery in good time if you are unable to attend.
• Behaving in an acceptable manner. Abusive or violent behaviour towards staff, nurses or doctors will never be tolerated. Violent or abusive patients will be removed from our practice list. We will call the police if we feel threatened.
• Keeping young children in your care under constant supervision and ensuring that they behave appropriately.
• Switching off or silencing mobile phones whilst on the surgery premises.
• Informing the practice of any change of name, address or telephone number.

Complaints Procedure

Practice complaints procedure:

We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS system dealing with complaints, and in accordance with the national criteria.

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.

How to complain:

Obviously it is best if we can sort out a problem quickly and easily. This is best done when you bring the problem to our attention at the time, within a few days or, at most, a few weeks of it arising. This will enable us to establish more easily what has happened. If this is not possible, please let us have the details of your complaint:

Within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem.

Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided it is within 12 months of the incident.

Complaints should be addressed to Kelly Anderson in the first instance.

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

What we shall do:

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 working days of the date that you first raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to give you an explanation, or offer a meeting with those involved. In investigating your complaint we shall aim to:

Find out what happened and what went wrong.

Enable you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this.

Ensure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate.

Identify what we can do to ensure that the problem does not happen again.

Complaining on behalf of someone else:

Please note that we adhere strictly to the rules of confidentiality. If you are making the complaint on behalf of another person, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be required, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

Complaining to the health board:

We hope that, if you do have a problem, you will use the practice complaints procedure. However this does not affect your right to approach the Health Board, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us, or if you are dissatisfied with the results of our investigation. The names and addresses of both the NHS Lothian complaints team and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman are as follows:

NHS Complaints Section
Waverley Gate

2-4 Waterloo Place

Edinburgh

EH1 3EG

Tel: 0131 5363370

email: complaints.team@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

Freepost EH641

Edinburgh

EH3 0BR

Tel: 08003777330

Email: ask@spso.org.uk

Website: www.spso.org.uk

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Data Protection Act 1998

St Leonards Medical Centre holds patient information on its clinical computer system.

St Leonards Medical Centre is registered with the Data Protection Register and complies with the Data Protection principals to safeguard all data held.

St Leonards Medical Centre has CCTV in operation in and around the surgery building. This is for the purpose of crime prevention and public safety and our equipment complies with the Data Protection Act.

St Leonards Medical Centre is keen to make all of its patients aware of important information. By Law under section 23 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we are required to make publicly available a description of the information about our General Practitioners and Practice. Please read through this document by clicking on the pdf document below (FOI Scotland 2002). Please also read through a recent document that was written to inform you, as our patient, about access to your medical records in conjunction with the data protection act by clicking on the Word Document below (Access to Medical Records)