At Greenhead Family Doctors we are committed to effective Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) in the workplace and patient safety is our utmost priority. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations require that healthcare premises are safe, the equipment used is also safe and that there are systems in place to manage the control of infection. Furthermore, the organisation is to be clean, secure, suitable and used properly and ensure that it maintains standards of hygiene appropriate to the purposes for which they are being used.

We have provided links below to out annual IPC Statement and our most recent Infection Control Audit achievement

View / Read our Privacy Notice.

View / Download our Complaints Policy.

The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

Greenhead Family Doctors supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time.  The staff 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.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

• Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
• Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
• Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
• Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.

Removal from the practice list

The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. We value and respect good patient-doctor relationships based on mutual respect and trust. When trust has irretrievably broken down, the practice will consider all factors before removing a patient from their list, and communicate to them that it is in the patient’s best interest that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is in the case of 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.

Greenhead Family Doctors operates an Equality and Diversity Policy as follows:

The term ‘visitor’ used below refers to anyone (including patients and their family members, other visitors and contractors) making use of the Practice’s premises and services.

The Practice:

• will ensure that all visitors are treated with dignity and respect
• will promote equality of opportunity between men and women
•  will not tolerate any discrimination against, or harassment of, any visitor for reason of age, sex, marital status, pregnancy, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief
• will provide the same treatment and services (including the ability to register with the Practice) to any visitor irrespective of age, sex, marital status, pregnancy, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief

Applicability

This Policy applies to the general public, including all patients and their families, visitors and contractors.

Procedure

Discrimination by the Practice against you:
If you feel discriminated against:

• You should bring the matter to the attention of the Practice Manager.
• The Practice Manager will investigate the matter thoroughly and confidentially within 14 working days.
• The Practice Manager will establish the facts and decide whether discrimination has taken place and advise you of the outcome of the investigation within 10 working days.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you should raise a formal complaint through the Practice’s Complaints Procedure

Discrimination against the Practice’s staff:

Greenhead Family Doctors will not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment of our staff by any visitor. Any visitor, who expresses any form of discrimination against, or harassment of, any member of our staff, will be required to leave the Practice’s premises forthwith. If the visitor is a patient, he/she may be removed from the Practice’s list if any such behaviour occurs on more than one occasion.

We are proud to be a safe surgery for everyone in our community, and pledge to ensure that everyone in our community receives the quality healthcare they are entitled to.

In partnership with Doctors of the World UK, we will ensure that our practice offers a welcoming space for everyone who seeks to use our services. We will ensure that a lack of identification, proof of address, or immigration status do not prevent patient registration. As a member of the Safe Surgeries community, we will endeavour to support other Safe Surgeries and the development of the network.

If you wish to register, please speak to a member of staff who can help and support you with the process of registration.

Using your Health Data for Planning and Research

Information about your health and care helps the NHS to improve your individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan your local services and research new treatments.

It can also help research organisations to explore new treatments or make discoveries.

You can decide that you do not want your information to be used in this way.

Choose if data from your health records is shared for research and planning

How we us your Personal Data

We take the security of your personal data very seriously and all our practice undergo annual training with regard to patient confidentiality and data protection.

The link below will take you to the practice Privacy Notice.

GP Privacy Notice (Jul 23)