The relationship between a GP surgery and their patients is based on trust, mutual respect, and open communication.
This partnership between GP surgeries and their patients is crucial for ensuring high-quality medical care and promoting overall health and well-being.
Below are listed some of the key elements that help to support and sustain the important relationship.
In accordance with our contract with NHS England, every patient is allocated a named GP
All patients should be given a named GP within 20 days of registration and told so at the next appropriate time.
The practice must confirm on their website that every patient has a named GP.
If a patient requests a particular GP, reasonable efforts should be made to accommodate their preference.
Practices are required to use the code 'patient allocated named accountable general practitioner' in the clinical system.
The named GP is largely a role of oversight. It reassures patients they have one GP who is responsible for their care.
It is really important that you attend your scheduled appointments at the surgery.
If it is no longer convenient or you decide you no longer need it then please let us know as early as you possibly can. Demand for appointments is very high and, with enough notice, we can usually reallocate your appointment to another patient.
You can cancel any appointment via the NHS app even it was not booked online in the first place.
When a patient misses an appointment it is known as a 'Did Not Attend' (DNA).
If a patient persistently misses appointments with letting us know in advance in can harm the relationship of mutual trust with the practice. We may contact you by phone or letter to discuss this and what we can do together to improve things in the future.
Our full policy for dealing with persistent non-attendance is contained in our DNA policy
We expect to run the surgery so staff and patients are courteous and respectful to each other.
Violent or abusive behaviour undermines the mutually supportive relationship between a patient and everyone at the surgery. It will not be tolerated.
We reserve the right to issue warnings to patients who commit these types of behaviour. This can include us taking steps to have the patient removed from our list, without notice if that is appropriate to protect our staff.
Types of behaviour that are not acceptable at the surgery include:-
If you have access to the internet and you are comfortable using digital services then the NHS App is the easiest way to interact with the surgery.
We encourage everyone who is able to use digital services to try them out and use them whenever possible.
You can use the app to carry out many of the basic interactions liking ordering medication or cancelling an appointment.
Doing these tasks via the NHS App can save you time and also reduces the amount of adminstration for the practice.
However we will make sure that technology is not a barrier that prevents patients accessing our services. We will always try make it clear how patients can access services without using digital apps.
Equally we will work to make sure the digital apps and our website meets the required standards for accessibility.
We encourage all our patients to use the NHS app to interact with the surgery but will make sure thatthose who are unable to use digital apps are not prevented from accessing services.
Shared Care Agreements (SCAs) are generally only established between NHS specialists and NHS GPs. These agreements allow a safe, planned transfer of prescribing and monitoring responsibilities when it is clinically appropriate and agreed by all parties.
Shared Care is not normally available for private patients. If you are under the care of a private consultant, they remain fully responsible for:
If you are currently receiving prescriptions from a private provider and do not have an agreed shared care arrangement in place with us, you will need to continue obtaining your prescription from your private service provider. Unfortunately, we will not be able to take over these prescriptions.
NHS GPs are not obligated to take over prescribing initiated privately, nor arrange monitoring for medication prescribed privately. This is supported by national guidance from the British Medical Association (BMA) General practice responsibility in responding to private healthcare, which states all shared care arrangements are voluntary, so even where agreements are in place, practices can decline shared care requests on clinical and capacity grounds. The responsibility for the patient’s care and ongoing prescribing then remains the responsibility of the private provider.