Practice Policies & Patient Information
Our staff are committed to providing quality healthcare for the benefit of all of our patients.
Please do take a look at our policies and procedures.
Accessing someone else’s information
Accessing someone else’s information
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.
To requests proxy access:
- collect a proxy access form from reception from 10am to 6pm
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.
Chaperones
The Surgery prides itself in maintaining professional standards. For certain examinations during consultations an impartial observer (a “Chaperone”) will be required.
This impartial observer will be a practice Nurse, Health Care Assistant or a member of our reception team who is familiar with the procedure and be available to reassure and raise any concerns on your behalf. If a nurse in unavailable at the time of your consultation then your examination may be re-scheduled for another time.
You are free to decline any examination or chose an alternative examiner or chaperone. You may also request a chaperone for any examination or consultation if one is not offered to you. The GP may not undertake an examination if a chaperone is declined.
The role of a Chaperone:
- Maintains professional boundaries during intimate examinations.
- Acknowledges a patient’s vulnerability.
- Provides emotional comfort and reassurance.
- Assists in the examination.
- Assists with undressing patients, if required.
Complaints Policy
Our aim is to provide the highest level of care for all our patients. We will always be willing to hear if there are ways in which you feel we can improve the service we provide. If you are not happy with the care and treatment you have received from the practice, please contact us and let us know.
We hope that most problems can be sorted out quickly and easily. If your problem cannot be resolved in this way, and you wish to make a formal complaint, please contact the Complaints Manager, who will be happy to deal with your concerns.
Complaints in writing may be sent direct to Cator Medical Centre for the attention of the Complaints Manager, or e-mailed to [email protected]
You may obtain a copy of our complaints procedure from reception or download it here:
Compliments, Comments & Suggestions
If you would like to pass on your thanks or make a general comment or suggestion then please don’t hesitate to email the surgery at [email protected]
CQC Reports
Data Choices
Your Data Matters to the NHS
Information about your health and care helps us to improve your individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan your local services and research new treatments. The NHS is committed to keeping patient information safe and always being clear about how it is used.
How your data is used
Information about your individual care such as treatment and diagnoses is collected about you whenever you use health and care services. It is also used to help us and other organisations for research and planning such as research into new treatments, deciding where to put GP clinics and planning for the number of doctors and nurses in your local hospital. It is only used in this way when there is a clear legal basis to use the information to help improve health and care for you, your family and future generations.
Wherever possible we try to use data that does not identify you, but sometimes it is necessary to use your confidential patient information.
You have a choice
You do not need to do anything if you are happy about how your information is used. If you do not want your confidential patient information to be used for research and planning, you can choose to opt out securely online or through a telephone service. You can change your mind about your choice at any time.
Will choosing this opt-out affect your care and treatment?
No, choosing to opt out will not affect how information is used to support your care and treatment. You will still be invited for screening services, such as screenings for bowel cancer.
What do you need to do?
If you are happy for your confidential patient information to be used for research and planning, you do not need to do anything.
To find out more about the benefits of data sharing, how data is protected, or to make/change your opt-out choice visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters
Diabetic Care Privacy Policy
General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new law which came into effect on 25th May 2018. It’s purpose is to govern how your personal data is processed and kept safe.
GDPR puts greater onus on us to ensure that patients fully understand our policy for sharing health related information, and your rights within this process. We must re-iterate to patients that the sharing of your medical information is only provided in order to better improve your care. We will not share your medical information with any third party provider should you not wish us to do so.
We would like to reassure you that every employee of the NHS has a legal responsibility to treat patient records in the strictest confidence at all times.
GP Earnings
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 at Cator Medical Centre in the last financial year was £96,477 before tax and National Insurance.
This is for 4 full time GPs and 6 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months.
Medical Reporting
Our practice outsources our medical reporting work to an NHS Digital accredited company called Medi2data.
You can request a copy of your medical records by completing a SAR form which you can obtain from our reception team or by emailing the administration team on [email protected]
Medi2data will process your medical report and provide online access via their secure encrypted portal.
If you wish to contact Medi2data directly, to enquire about your request please email [email protected] or call on 03333 055774.
Named GP
We have allocated a Named Accountable GP for all of our registered patients. If you do not know who your named GP is, please ask a member of our reception team.
Unfortunately, we are unable to notify patients in writing of any change of GP due to the costs involved.
Patient Satisfaction Survey
Practice Development Business Plan
Privacy Information
Please download a copy of our Privacy Information Leaflet by clicking on the link below:-
Cator Medical Centre works hard to provide the public and patients with clear and accurate information relating to how their personal information is used by the organisation, and publishes Privacy Notices on this website to inform you of these uses.
These Privacy Notices help us to ensure that the use of your data is fair, lawful and transparent in line with our organisational responsibilities under Data Protection Law.
The Privacy Notices are designed to be concise, clear and intelligible. However, we would always welcome your questions regarding the use of your data if you feel this does not provide you with enough information, or you would prefer any of the notices to be explained to you.
Please note that all telephone calls to and from the Surgery are recorded.
- Privacy Notice – Anima
- Privacy Notice – CQC
- Privacy Notice – Direct Care – Emergencies
- Privacy Notice – Direct Care
- Privacy Notice – National Screening Programs
- Privacy Notice – NHS Digital
- Privacy Notice – Patient Communication
- Privacy Notice – Payments
- Privacy Notice – Public Health
- Privacy Notice – Research
- Privacy Notice – Risk Stratification
- Privacy Notice – Safeguarding
Privacy Statement
Privacy Statement
Our Duties
As part of our legal duties, this practice is required to;
- Maintain full and accurate records of the care and services we provide you
- Keep records about you confidential and secure
Your Information
The practice aims to provide you with safe, high quality care that is based on accurate, up to date information.
This information allows us to work others involved in your care and this may involve sharing information with other health and social care organisations.
Information Includes;
- Basic details such as address, date of birth and next of kin
- Contact we have had with you
- Notes and reports about your health
- Details and records about your treatment and care
Others may also need to use records about you to:
- Check the quality of care you are receiving
- Protect the health of the general public
- Keep track of NHS spending
- Help investigate any concerns or complaints you ask us to
- Teach students or staff
- Support health and social care research
Sometimes we share your information with third parties to support your care such as:
- Hospitals
- Social care
- Community Health
- Clinical Commissioning Groups
- Mental Health Providers
- NHS Digital
When we are sharing information to support third parties in providing your care, we will work hard to ensure it is the minimum necessary and that it is done so securely and lawfully. We aim to ensure that we only use your personal information in a way that you would reasonably expect.
When we share information that is used for healthcare management or planning, this does not allow for you to be identified.
Sometimes we will be required to share information for other reasons;
- When required to by law
- We have special permission for health or research purposes (e.g. if you have agreed to take part in a research trial)
- There is a strong public interest (e.g. there is a risk of serious harm or crime)
Objections
You can choose not to have information that could identify you shared beyond your GP practice. You can also choose to prevent information that does not identify you from being shared for planning and research.
Simply contact your GP either to register an opt-out or end an opt-out you have already registered and they will update your medical record. Your GP practice will also be able to confirm whether or not you have registered an opt-out in the past.
If you have previously told your GP practice that you don’t want NHS Digital to share your personal confidential information for purposes other than your own care and treatment, your opt-out will have been implemented by NHS Digital from 29th April 2016 as instructed in a direction from the Secretary of State. It will remain in place unless you change it.
As the Secretary of State’s direction; this included the policy on how to apply opt-outs was not available before April 2016 it was not possible for NHS Digital to honour opt-outs made before this date. This means that information may have been shared without respecting these opt-outs between January 2014 and April 2016.
You can find more information on NHS Digital’s website:
See how NHS Digital uses your information.
Read about how NHS Digital handles your information and your choices.
Your Rights
Under Data Protection law, you have a right to;
- object to certain uses of your data
- to be provided with a copy information held about you
- that your information will not be used for direct marketing purposes
- have any incorrect information amended or erased
Please contact your surgery for any requests made in connection with these rights.
For a copy of your information;
- Your request must be made in writing to your surgery
- The surgery is required to respond to your request in writing within 40 days (a month from May 2018)
- You will need to give the surgery your full name, address, date of birth and NHS number
- You will be required to provide personal identification such as a driving licence or passport
Use of the Website
Generally, our website will not require you to enter personal information. When it does, for example; online appointment booking, we will apply the same confidentiality principles as those described above.
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should be aware that we do not have any control over the other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting these sites.
Data Security
We intend to protect the confidentiality, quality and integrity of your personal information and we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to do so. These include staff training, up to date policies and procedures and working to align with national cyber security guidelines.
London Care Record
This practice uses a shared record system called the London Care Record. The London Care Record is a secure view of your health and care information and lets health and care professionals involved in your care see important details about your health when and where they need them. Having a single, secure view of your information helps speed up communication between care professionals across London, improves the safety of care and can save lives.
London Care Record can only be lawfully looked at by staff who are directly involved in your care. Your information isn’t available to anyone who doesn’t need it to provide treatment, care and support to you. Your details are kept safe and won’t be made public, passed on to a third party who is not directly involved in your care, used for advertising or sold. For more information please read the London Care Record privacy notice for South East London here: The London Care Record – South East London ICS (selondonics.org)
Opting out of the London Care Record
You have the right to object to your information being available through London Care Record. Although patients have the right to object and request restrictions on sharing their records, there may be instances where this request will not be upheld due to a clinical need as determined by the direct care giver. Please discuss this with your GP/ health and social care worker and you can find further information in this London Care Record leaflet.
For further information and advice about data protection or your right to object to sharing your data you can contact the team at Lewisham and Greenwich Trust who manage the London Care Record for South East London www.lewishamandgreenwich.nhs.uk/london-care-record or you can call 020 3192 6011 and leave your name and number for someone to contact you.
If you have already requested to stop sharing on ConnectCare/Local Care Record in South East London, then you will not have to request this again for London Care Record.
Proxy Access Policy
Statement of Intent
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:
- London Care Record (LCR)
- GP to GP Record Transfers
- Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
- Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes
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.
London Care Record (LCR)
London Care Record (South East London) FAQs
If you would prefer your information not to be shared on the London Care Record, please read the following document and complete the Individual Rights Request form at the end of the document. Individual Rights Request Form To opt back in click here Reauthorisation of Data Sharing Form
This form should be submitted to the following email address [email protected]. If you change your mind at any time and would like your information shared in the London Care Record, please email [email protected].
See more info by clicking on this link – The London Care Record – South East London ICS (selondonics.org)
See also the SEL ICS Privacy Notice – SEL ICS Privacy Notice for the London Care Record
GP to GP Record Transfers
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.
Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
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.
Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes
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.
Training Practice
The Surgery is an approved training practice for the training of General Practice Registrars (GPRs).
Being an approved training practice means that:
- patients can directly contribute to the training of future GPs
- patients who consult with the GPR will have longer consultations
- it keeps all doctors and nurses keep in touch with new medical developments and skills
- It improves all doctors and nurse’s consultation and training skills
- It ensures that clinical standards and standards of medical record keeping are maintained
- It helps with recruitment of high quality doctors to the practice for job vacancies
GPRs are doctors in training who are qualified doctors and have already worked in hospitals as junior doctors for at least 3 years and have now decided that they would like to specialise in General Practice.
In order to qualify as a GP all doctors have to complete Postgraduate Specialist Training which includes at least 18 months training in General Practice.
The practice will be regularly assessed for its suitability for postgraduate training in general practice. This process includes an inspection of medical records for quality, NOT content. If you object to your record being seen for this process then you must let us know in writing so these notes can be withdrawn.
An essential component of training in all medical practice is the use of video and consultations with the both the GPR and the trainer present. We hope that all our patients will be willing to take part in these educational consultations to help us all in improving and maintaining our medical and consultation skills. All video recordings are strictly confidential and are used for teaching only.
We will not video your consultation without your consent. Please inform Reception if you would prefer not to participate.
Zero Tolerance
The practice fully supports the NHS Zero Tolerance Policy. The aim of this policy is to tackle the increasing problem of violence against staff working in the NHS and ensures that doctors and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused.
We understand that ill patients 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 your doctors and their staff courteously and act reasonably.
All incidents will be followed up and you will be sent a formal warning after a second incident or removed from the practice list after a third incident if your behaviour has been unreasonable.
However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or verbal abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police will be contacted if an incident is taking place and the patient is posing a threat to staff or other patients.
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 Surgery, 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, however, because of the 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.