As a parent, family member or carer, you may be able to access services for someone else. We call this having proxy access. We can set this up for you if you are both registered with us.
Linked profiles in your NHS account
Once proxy access is set up, you can access the other person’s profile in your NHS account, using the NHS App or website.
The NHS website has information about using linked profiles to access services for someone else.
Dickenson Road Medical Centre aims to provide high quality healthcare and we will treat all patients with respect and dignity.
Verbal or physical assaults on staff will be taken very seriously and police assistance sought. This will result in your immediate removal from our list.
Unfortunately, there has been an increase in verbal and physical attacks on staff and this is unacceptable.
Dickenson Road Medical Centre and Manchester Health and Care Commissioning support The NHS Zero Tolerance Policy. This policy recognises the increasing problem of violence against staff working in the NHS and ensures that doctors and healthcare staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused.
Patients also have a right to access services without fear of violence at their practice.
In line with this policy, we have a zero tolerance approach to aggression, abuse, violence or anti-social behaviour.
What do we mean by zero tolerance?
We understand that when patients feel ill, they do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint. We ask you to treat healthcare professionals and practice staff courteously and act reasonably.
Whilst it is not possible to list all types of incidents, some examples of unacceptable behaviour are provided below:
This relates to any form of abuse from patients or staff which includes (but is not limited to) sexism, racism homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and ageism, or harassment or abuse on basis of disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.
Such behaviour or verbal abuse causing distress and or constituting harassment will not be tolerated and could lead to the person being removed from the practice list. In extreme cases the police will be contacted if the patient is posing a threat to staff or others.
If you wish to provide feedback or make a complaint, please click on the link below:
Removal from the practice list
A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship.
When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.
Removing other members of the household
In rare cases if there is a possible need to visit patients at home, it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household.
The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family.
This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.
For more information and the latest news, please visit our home page: www.dickensonroadmc.nhs.uk/news_archive
If you have a comment, concern or complaint about any staff member or aspect of service then please let us know.
We handle complaints in line with the NHS complaints procedures.
We hope that most problems can be resolved at the time between those parties concerned. Please ask to speak to the Practice manager or Operations Manager at the time of the incident. However, if this is not possible then you can phone or write to the practice manager as soon as possible. Prompt contact will enable us to investigate the matter more easily.
There are some time limits for reporting any issues. Complaints should be reported within twelve months of the incident, or within twelve months of becoming aware of the incident.
Please be as precise as possible when documenting your complaint. Vague statements such as “they were rude on the phone” are very difficult to investigate or evidence afterwards. Give examples of things that were said that you considered to be rude.
We must acknowledge receipt of your correspondence within three working days of receiving it.
Our acknowledgement will offer you the opportunity to discuss how we will handle your complaint and provide the date by which we will respond in full.
Our investigation will allow for the following points.
Please note that we are unable to divulge patient details to any third party without prior written consent of the patient.
Therefore if you are complaining on behalf of someone else, you must provide a letter of authorisation from the person concerned, unless they are incapable of doing this (eg due to illness). If you cannot provide consent then please contact us for advice.
We hope that you will use our internal complaints procedure and allow us to resolve your complaint. However, under NHS complaints procedures you can raise your concerns with the commissioner of the service. Both NHS England and Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board(GM ICB) commission us to provide services. You can contact them using the details below.
NHS England Contact Centre
NHS Commissioning Board,
PO Box 16738,
Redditch,
B97 9PT
0300 311 2233
www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/complaint
Complaints
Manchester – NHS GM ICB,
Manchester Feedback and Complaints Service
PO Box 532,
Town Hall,
Manchester,
M60 2LA
Email: nhscomplaints@manchester.gov.uk
Call: 0161 953 8388
New contractual requirements came into force from 1 April 2014 requiring that GP Practices should make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments:
The same contractual obligations require that we have a statement of intent regarding these developments in place and publicised by 30 September 2014.
Please find below details of the practices stance with regards to these points.
NHS England require practices to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis, to the summary care record (SCR) or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.
Having your Summary Care Record (SCR) available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.
Of course, if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record. You can do this via the opt out form.
The practice confirms that your SCR is automatically updated on at least a daily basis to ensure that your information is as up to date as it can possibly be.
NHS England require practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers (not for temporary registration).
It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times. If you leave your GP and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England. It can take your paper records up to two weeks to reach your new surgery.
With GP to GP record transfers your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.
The practice confirms that GP to GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.
NHS England require practices to promote and offer the facility to enable patients online access to appointments, prescriptions, allergies and adverse reactions or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.
We currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments and also for ordering your repeat prescriptions and viewing a summary of your medical records on-line. If you do not already have a user name and password for this system – please register your interest with our reception staff.
It is already a requirement of the Health and Social Care Act that practices must meet the reasonable data requirements of commissioners and other health and social care organisations through appropriate and safe data sharing for secondary uses, as specified in the technical specification for care data.
At our practice we have specific arrangements in place to allow patients to “opt out” of care.data which allows for the removal of data from the practice. Please see the page about care data on our website
The Practice confirm these arrangements are in place and that we undertake annual training and audits to ensure that all our data is handled correctly and safely via the Information Governance Toolkit.
We aim to keep our surgery clean and tidy and offer a safe environment to our patients and staff. We are proud of our Practice and endeavour to keep it clean and well maintained at all times.
If you have any concerns about cleanliness or infection control, please report these to our Reception staff.
Our GPs and nursing staff follow our Infection Control Policy to ensure the care we deliver and the equipment we use is safe. Ankita Shah is our lead on infection control implementation in the practice.
We take additional measures to ensure we maintain the highest standards:
The average pay for GPs working in Dickenson Road Medical Practice in the 2020/21 financial year was £140,453 before tax and National Insurance.
This is for 4 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.
The Freedom of Information Act creates a right of access to recorded information and obliges a public authority to:
The Act covers any recorded organisational information such as reports, policies or strategies, that is held by a public authority in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and by UK-wide public authorities based in Scotland, however it does not cover personal information such as patient records which are covered by the Data Protection Act.
Public authorities include government departments, local authorities, the NHS, state schools and police forces.
The Act is enforced by the Information Commissioner who regulates both the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act.
A publication scheme requires an authority to make information available to the public as part of its normal business activities. The scheme lists information under seven broad classes, which are:
You can request our publication scheme leaflet at the surgery.
Under the Act, any individual, anywhere in the world, is able to make a request to a practice for information. An applicant is entitled to be informed in writing, by the practice, whether the practice holds information of the description specified in the request and if that is the case, have the information communicated to him. An individual can request information, regardless of whether he/she is the subject of the information or affected by its use.
Requests must:
Personal data about staff and patients covered under Data Protection Act.
For more information see these websites:
The Information Commissioner recognises the unprecedented challenges the NHS and other health professionals are facing during COVID-19.
The ICO (Information Commissioners Office) also recognise that ‘Public bodies may require additional collection and sharing of personal data to protect against serious threats to public health.’
On 20th March 2020 the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care issued a Notice under Regulation 3(4) of The Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 requiring organisations such as GP Practices to use your information to help GP Practices and other healthcare organisations to respond to and deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
In order to look after your healthcare needs during this difficult time, we may urgently need to share your personal information, including medical records, with clinical and non-clinical staff who belong to organisations that are permitted to use your information and need to use it to help deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. This could (amongst other measures) consist of treating you; and enable us and other healthcare organisations to monitor the disease, assess risk and manage the spread of the disease.
Please be assured that we will only share information and health data that is necessary to meet yours and public healthcare needs.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has also stated that these measures are temporary and will expire on 30th September 2020 unless a further extension is required.
Please also note that the data protection and electronic communication laws do not stop us from sending public health messages to you, either by phone, text or email as these messages are not direct marketing.
It may also be necessary to use your information and health data to facilitate digital consultations and diagnoses and we will always do this with your security in mind.
If you are concerned about how your information is being used, please contact our DPO using mhcc.ig@nhs.net.
Everyone who works for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential. We will only provide information to those who are authorised to receive it and who will keep it confidential. Whenever possible any information passed on will be anonymised.
In line with the new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation Act) which comes into force on 25th May 2018 you will be asked by a member of staff/clinician for your consent before sending any referral/information to other medical professionals in looking after your clinical needs.
We hold your patient records in the strictest confidence, regardless of whether they are electronic or on paper. We take all reasonable precautions to prevent unauthorised access to your records, however they are stored. Any information that may identify you is only shared with the practice team, or, if you are referred to hospital, to the clinician who will be treating you. We will only share information about you with anyone else if you give your permission in writing.
We may try to contact you using the mailing address, land line telephone number, mobile telephone number (including text messaging) or email address that you provide. This may be for, amongst other things, appointment reminders, information about special clinics or to request information from you. If you prefer not to be contacted by one or more of these means then please let us know so that we can record your preferences.
It is your responsibility to ensure that the practice has your current contact details to ensure that there is no possible delay to your treatment.
We ask you for information about yourself so that you can receive proper care and treatment. All personal information (updated as appropriate), together with details of your care, is stored in your medical record which is held on paper and computer. All members of the practice are contractually and ethically obliged to maintain the confidentiality of your medical record at all times, even after leaving the practice. Just because we hold the data does not give every member of staff the right to look at it. Anyone viewing your medical record must have a valid reason to do so in the course of performing their job. All computer held records have an audit trail of activity by all users.
Officially, your medical record is the property of the Secretary of State for Health. However, we are considered to be the Data Controller and therefore responsible for the confidentiality of your medical record whilst you are registered as a patient with us.
We are required to share certain identifiable data about you with other parts of the NHS in relation to financial claims. This will ordinarily just be your NHS number. We also share demographic and relevant clinical details within the NHS for the purpose of operating recall systems, eg childhood immunisations, cancer screening and diabetic retinopathy programmes.
If you require care from another healthcare provider, eg a referral to see a specialist, then we will need to share relevant information about you and your care. We will obtain consent to this sharing if you are in agreement with the need for the referral.
The information we hold about you may be used for secondary purposes. This includes planning health services, clinical audit, monitoring the spread of disease (epidemiology) etc. Your personal details are never disclosed for secondary purposes, only relevant clinical data is provided, for example the total number of people registered with us who have diabetes.
We will never disclose any information about you to a third party without your consent, unless required to do so by law.
If you wish to request access to your medical records under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 to be updated by the GDPR Act which comes into force 25th May 2018, then you should apply in writing to the Data Controller. You should include your name, date of birth and the address that we will have on your file. Such requests must be accompanied by a signature and you are therefore advised to write or come in person to issue your request. Please note that as of the 25th May 2018, you will no longer be required to pay a fee although depending on the request e.g. a written medical report a fee will be applied. If you request copies of your medical records on more than one occasion we are able to provide apply an administration fee. As we are no longer able to charge for our time and consumables for providing copies of your records you may be required to attend the practice to collect them for onward transmission as the postage can be quite costly dependent on the size of your records. Further information about your rights under this Act are available from the Information Commissioner’s website.