Patient Charter
Your Doctor's Responsibilities:
- To treat you with respect and courtesy at all times.
- To treat you as an individual, and to discuss with you the care and treatment we can provide.
- To give you full information on the services we offer.
- To give you the most appropriate care by suitably qualified staff.
- To provide you with emergency care when you need it.
- To refer you to a suitable consultant when necessary.
- To give you access to your health records, subject to any limitations in the law.
Your Responsibilities As A Patient:
- To treat all staff with respect and courtesy at all times.
- To tell us if you are unsure about the treatment we are offering you.
- To ask for a home visit, only when you are unable to attend the medical centre through illness or infirmity.
- To request such a visit if at all possible before 10.00am.
- To ask for an out-of-hours visit only when necessary.
- To keep your appointments and contact the medical centre in advance if you cannot attend.
- To respect the premises which was built with you in mind.
Practice Charter Standards
The care of your health is a partnership between patient and the Practice team. Success of that partnership depends on a number of factors.Following discussion you will receive the most appropriate care, given by suitably qualified people. No care or treatment will be given without your informed consent. In the interest of your health it is important for you to understand all the information given to you.
Our Responsibilities to You
- To treat you with respect and courtesy at all times.
- To treat you as an individual and to discuss with you the care and treatment we can provide.
- To give you full information on the services we offer.
- To give you the most appropriate care by suitably qualified staff.
- To provide you with emergency care when you need it.
- To refer you to a consultant acceptable to you when necessary.
- To give you access to your health records, in accordance with current legislation.
- To hold all information in the strictest confidence.
- To give you a full and prompt reply to any complaint you may make about our service.
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
You have a right to expect a high standard of medical care from our Practice and we will try at all times to provide the very best care possible within the resources available. In order to assist us in this we require that you take full responsibility for ensuring that you do not abuse the service. For example, it is your responsibility to ensure that you keep medical appointments and follow the medical advice given.
Very occasionally a Practice/patient relationship breaks down completely. In this situation the patient may choose to register with a different Practice. The Practice also has the right to remove that patient from their list. This would generally only follow a warning letter that had failed to remedy the situation and we would normally give the patient a specific reason for the removal.
Violent Patients - Zero Tolerance
The NHS operates 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 are obliged to 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 circumstances leading to it. Kent and Medway ICB are then responsible for providing further medical care for such patients.