The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

• To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
• To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
• When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.

Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practitioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.

Access to Records

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

Complaints

We always try to provide the best services possible, but there may be times when you feel this has not happened. The following information explains our in-house complaints procedure, which is in accordance with the NHS complaints procedure. Our practice procedure is not able to deal with questions of legal liability or compensation. We hope you will use it to allow us to look into and, if necessary, correct any problems that you have identified, or mistakes that have been made.

If you use this procedure it will not affect your right to complain to the Swansea Bay University Health Board. Please note that we have to respect our duty of confidentiality to patients and a patient's consent will be necessary if a complaint is not made by the patient in person. If you wish to make a complaint, please telephone or write to our practice manager. Full details will be taken and a decision made on how best to undertake the investigation. Should a patient make a complaint, we may need to provide information about the patient and treatment they have received, to insurers, indemnifiers and legal advisors

For further help with any concern, you can contact the local Community Health Council (CHC). They are an independent body of the NHS and can offer help, advice and advocacy.  All further information, included any contact details are available in a leaflet at both sites. This explains the full complaints process.  Please see below for a copy of our in-house complaints procedure:

Practice in-house complaints procedure

Violence Policy

The NHS operate 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 will 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 the circumstances leading to it.

There are CCTV systems in operation in both sites