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 Data Administrator (Medico-Legal) 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.

We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

To pursue a complaint please contact the Practice Manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.

The practice ensures compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 which also covers Access to Medical Records and Subject Access Requests.

Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

• To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. Community Nurses and Hospital services.
• To help you get other services e.g. Essex County Council, Social Care.
• 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 various Health organisations 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.

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.

General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)

The GDPR requires practices to process data fairly and in a transparent manner which is easily accessible and easy to understand. This means that practices must provide information to patients about how the practice processes patient data in the form of a ‘practice privacy notice’.

Please click on the links below to see Nuffield House Surgery privacy notices:

Nuffield House Surgery Privacy Notice June 2021

Privacy Notice Legal Requirements to Share Data

Privacy Notice Medical Research & National Clinical Audits

Privacy Notice National Screening Programmes

IGPR

We use a processor, iGPR Technologies Limited (“iGPR”), to assist us with responding to report requests relating to your patient data, such as subject access requests that you submit to us (or that someone acting on your behalf submits to us) and report requests that insurers submit to us under the Access to Medical Records Act 1988 in relation to a life insurance policy that you hold or that you are applying for. iGPR manages the reporting process for us by reviewing and responding to requests in accordance with our instructions and all applicable
laws, including UK data protection laws.
The instructions we issue to iGPR include general instructions on responding to requests and specific instructions on issues that will require further consultation with the GP responsible for your care.

General Practice Transparency Notice for GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (COVID-19)

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs working in Nuffield House Surgery in the last financial year was £71,066 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 3 full time GPs, 3 part-time GPs and 1 GP locum who worked in the practice for more than six months.

However it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice, and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.”

Mission Statement

Our mission is uncomplicated. We are dedicated to providing our patients with excellent health care, and offering our staff a safe, happy, enabled working environment that values learning and development.

We aim to centre our approach on the five, core, CQC values and endeavour to use these in our decision-making and planning. We believe all staff who are employed by, or work within Nuffield House Surgery, are valuable and each and every one has a rôle to play. Although we may be employed by Nuffield House Surgery, we all work for the patients.

 Caring

Care is our core business and the care we deliver helps the individual person and improves the health of the whole community. Caring defines us and our work. People receiving care expect it to be right for them, consistently, throughout every stage of their life. We have teams of both clinical and non-clinical staff who look after our different groups of patients from birth to end of life. These include patients with long-term conditions, the frail and elderly, pregnant mums, new births and under 5’s, those with all forms of mental illness and/or learning disabilities, patients with cancer and those in nursing homes and hospices. We hold weekly and monthly multidisciplinary meetings with professionals from both health and social care. We train our teams to be aware, and to care navigate patients to the most appropriate clinicians.

Communication is central to successful caring relationships and to effective team working. Listening is as important as what we say and do and essential for “no decision about me without me”. Communication is the key to a good workplace with benefits for those in our care and staff alike.

Safe

We are aware of how much trust you put into your GP surgery. We highly value this trust. We have robust child and adult safeguarding protocols which are followed rigorously and reviewed regularly. This applies also to our prescribing monitoring. We hold weekly clinical meetings, audit our clinical findings and hold significant event reviews to ensure patient safety and learn how to do things better if things don’t go as planned. Competence means all those employed by Nuffield House Health Centre must have the expertise, clinical and technical knowledge to deliver effective care and treatments based on research, best practice and evidence.

 Responsive

Compassion is how care is given through relationships based on empathy, respect and dignity – it can also be described as ‘intelligent kindness’, and is central to how people perceive their care. We respond to the need for change – either through changes directed from above, or through liaison with our Patient Participation Group. We also use the Friends and Family survey, as well as our own in-house developed questionnaire to listen to patient’s suggestions. By being creative and innovative, we aim to keep fresh and make us an attractive place to work thereby appealing to high calibre staff.

 Effective

You can be assured of receiving help from our team on the day and we have improved our telephone access to enable this. We review our appointment availability weekly to ensure that we are offering the correct ratio of appointments to our patient list size. At times, like during winter pressures, this will be put to the test but we look at all ways of coping with the demand. We have introduced increased telephone and video consultations and are improving the skill mix of doctors and nurses to make sure you see the right clinician for the right problem at the right time. We use our website to help and inform our patients of changes.

 Well-led

Being well led we feel is key to ensuring you are well looked after. Our experienced management team produce and review policies and protocols to help us deliver consistently safe care. These are available to everyone at Nuffield House Surgery both in hard copy and electronically on the practice intranet. Our Nursing, Administration and Reception Team Leaders meet weekly with the Practice Manager and open form of communication supports the on-going development of the teams and individuals.

Clinical and non-clinical staff have to complete e-learning annually on mandatory subjects as well as those relevant to their individual roles. West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (WECCG) also provides protected learning time events throughout the year. Dates of these Time to Learn Events are posted on our website as we close in order for everyone to attend. During this time our patients are looked after by the Out of Hours Service.

Primary Care Networks (PCN’s) are groups of local practices working together and pooling resources to provide consistently high healthcare to their local communities. PCN’s have been instrumental in providing practices with Social Prescribers, Community Pharmacists and First Contact Practitioners (physios) who are able to see patients who would, otherwise, been seen by a GP. In the near future they are hoping to employ paramedics who will help to improve the skill mix of practices.

Vision (where we see ourselves in the future)

•  To work in partnerships with our families and carers on promoting optimal health and preventing disease whilst continuing to provide best practice high quality care.

• To be a learning organisation and to extend the learning to others locally by shared learning through significant event analysis.

• To provide all of our service users and staff with a safe and welcoming environment and one that works on a sound financial basis.
• To adapt to the increasing number of patients who have multiple long term conditions (multi morbidity) either in the community or at home.
• To work towards more collaboration and co-ordination across boundaries, with less fragmentation of care.
• To seek out advances in technology to the advantage of our service users.
• Have a strong leadership position in the care we deliver within our locality

Nuffield House Surgery has a statutory duty of care towards Adults at risk (Care Act 2014)n Act 2004).  We are committed to a best practice which safeguards adults at risk irrespective of their background, and which recognises that a adult may be abused regardless of their age, gender, religious beliefs, racial origin or ethnic identity, culture class, disability of sexual orientation.

Having safeguards in place within any organisation not only protects and promotes the welfare of children and young people at risk, but also enhances the confidence of staff, volunteers, parents/carers and the general public. Protecting children and young people from abuse and neglect, and exploitation, preventing impairment of health and development, and ensuring children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care enables them to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

Nuffield House Surgery is committed to safeguarding children, young people at risk and has a responsibility to ensure that practice staff know what to do if they encounter child or adult abuse or have concerns that they may be at risk of harm.

The practice is committed to working within agreed policies and procedures and in partnership with other agencies to ensure that the risk of harm to a child or young person is minimised. This work may include direct and indirect contact with children, (access to patient’s details, communication via email, text message/phone). This partnership also includes sharing information with partner agencies and services to ensure the best interests of the child are protected. While we would wish to do this with the consent of parents and/or carers wherever possible, there may be circumstances where information may need to be shared without consent.

Nuffield House Surgery has a statutory duty of care towards children (Section 11 Children Act 2004) and young people at risk.  We are committed to a best practice which safeguards children and young people irrespective of their background, and which recognises that a child may be abused regardless of their age, gender, religious beliefs, racial origin or ethnic identity, culture class, disability of sexual orientation.

Having safeguards in place within any organisation not only protects and promotes the welfare of children and young people at risk, but also enhances the confidence of staff, volunteers, parents/carers and the general public. Protecting children and young people from abuse and neglect, and exploitation, preventing impairment of health and development, and ensuring children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care enables them to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.

Nuffield House Surgery is committed to safeguarding children, young people at risk and has a responsibility to ensure that practice staff know what to do if they encounter child or adult abuse or have concerns that they may be at risk of harm.

The practice is committed to working within agreed policies and procedures and in partnership with other agencies to ensure that the risk of harm to a child or young person is minimised. This work may include direct and indirect contact with children, (access to patient’s details, communication via email, text message/phone). This partnership also includes sharing information with partner agencies and services to ensure the best interests of the child are protected. While we would wish to do this with the consent of parents and/or carers wherever possible, there may be circumstances where information may need to be shared without consent.

Click here to download full Statement of Purpose

Nuffield House Surgery welcomes comments and suggestions from patients and these can be submitted in writing to the Practice Manager.  We use these as a way to review and improve our services.

We have noticed a developing trend where a patient will use a Social Media site, such as Facebook, to comment on the Practice and members of the surgery staff.

If you have a complaint about our service, we would encourage you to report this to the Practice Manager using our Complaints Procedure (a complaints form is available in Reception and our complaints procedure and form is available on our website) The Practice always investigates and responds to complaints.

The Partners reserve the right to remove a patient from the surgery list and report them to the social networking site if they are found to have made libellous statements or defamatory comments about the surgery or a member of the surgery staff.  The legal definition of defamation is:

“any intentionally false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation; decreases the respect, regard or confidence in which a person is held; or induces hostile or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.”

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.