Practice Policies & Patient Information
This stood where our current car park is, and was demolished to make way for our new practice building in 1999. The present building was opened by the Lord Mayor in July 2000. It offers us more consulting rooms, more clinical areas, better accommodation for our health visitors and midwives, more administration space and enhanced facilities for teaching. Since the introduction of the new General Medical Services contract for practices, the practice provides core services and a range of direct and national enhanced services for patients.
Care Record
If you DO NOT want a Summary Care Record please fill out the form. Your clinical information will be withheld from the Summary Care Record.
Deleting your Data
This will only happen following a review of the information at the end of its retention period. Where data has been identified for disposal, we have the following responsibilities:
- to ensure that information held in manual form is destroyed using a cross-cut shredder or contracted to a reputable confidential waste company [name of shredding company used, if applicable] that complies with European Standard EN15713 and obtain certificates of destruction.
- to ensure that electronic storage media used to store, or process information are destroyed or overwritten to national standards.
Feedback and Complaints
Is your feedback positive or negative?
Positive Feedback: We really work hard to provide you with good quality healthcare services and we are human too. If you are happy with our services then please do tell us and tell others too.
Negative Feedback: If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working in this practice, please let us know. We operate practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria.
How to complain
Complaints Procedure
The staff and partners recognise that, occasionally, everyone makes mistakes. This includes us. Although we always try to provide the kind of service our patients would like, we appreciate that this is not always possible.
We feel that the only way to improve the service that we provide is to actively encourage our patients to complain about the things we get wrong. (We hope you will also tell us about the things we get right!).
If you are unhappy about the service, staff or any other aspect of the surgery, please tell us.
We operate a practice complaints procedure, which is part of the NHS system for dealing with complaining and meets national criteria.
If you make a complaint, it is practice policy to ensure you are not discriminated against, or subjected to any negative effect on your care, treatment or support.
How to complain
We aim to resolve complaints easily and quickly. In many cases, we try to solve the problems as they arise. If your problem cannot be resolved at this stage and you wish to make a formal complaint please let us know as soon as possible, ideally within a matter of days.
You can make a complaint can either do this by:
a) Completing a paper complaints form
b) Completing an online (accurx) form which we can send you via text and you can respond directly to. (preferred). If you visit https://accurx.nhs.uk/patient-initiated/M85117 and complete an admin request, asking for a complaints form they will send you a link to complete it online.
Whichever way you choose to raise your concerns, your written complaint will be acknowledged in writing within 3 working days. You may be asked to attend an appointment, with a manager or a GP if appropriate. There may be another staff member present to make notes of this meeting so that a follow-up letter can be done. This may be a secretary or another GP.
The purpose of this appointment is to take a detailed record of your concerns. A copy of this will be sent to you.
If the complaint is relatively straightforward, we will now be in a position to have your complaint investigated and can offer you an explanation in writing. If, however, you are not satisfied or your complaint is of a more complicated nature, we will explain the next step in the complaints procedure and the time limits you should expect.
In all instances, the Practice Manager will ensure that your concerns are dealt with as soon as possible and you will be kept informed.
Complaining on behalf of someone else.
If a situation arises where you need someone to make a complaint on your behalf, or a patient requests that you make a complaint on their behalf, then you need to be aware that we keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality.
We would always need the written consent of the patient before we could accept the complaint. If you need to do this, you should ask reception staff for a consent form.
If you require access to Medical Records, you need to complete a Subject Access form, which is available from Reception or available electronically which we can send.
What will we do?
During our investigation we shall:
• Find out exactly what happened and what went wrong
• Ensure that the problem has been discussed with all the appropriate members of staff and provide feedback
• Offer an apology if we are found to be at fault
• Take steps to ensure that the problem does not happen again.
Can I bring anyone with me?
During these meetings, you have the right to have another person, an advocate, present. This person can be anyone of your choosing, with the exception of a solicitor engaged for a fee.
How long do I have to complain?
You have:
• 6 months from the original date of the incident
• Or 6 months from the date of discovering a problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident.
• 12 months within the date of a patient’s death to make a complaint.
After this, facts and conversations become muddled and so a satisfactory conclusion is unlikely.
Not happy with the outcome?
We believe that raising your concerns with us will give us the best chance to improve our service. Whilst we hope that we can give you a satisfactory explanation or solution and include any changes to the way we do things if this is necessary.
Your complaint should be made as soon as possible. This should be within a year of the event, or as soon as it came to your attention. You can make a complaint about something that has happened to you, or on behalf of someone else, if you have their permission.
• Write to: NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board, Patient Experience and Complaints Team, Alpha Tower, 8th Floor, Suffolk Street Queensway, Birmingham, B1 1TT
• Email for complaints and patient enquiries: bsol.patientexperience@nhs.net
• Call: 0121 203 3313
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18) became law on 25th May 2018. The GDPR is a single EU-wide regulation on the protection of confidential and sensitive information and the DPA18 implements the regulations into comprehensive UK legislation. Following the decision for the UK to leave the European Union and following the end of the transition period, from January 1st, 2021 the UK has been subject to an Adequacy Agreement which will allow data to continue to be shared with European Union Countries without further safeguarding being necessary. This is to allow the European Commission suitable time to grant the UK with adequacy status, meaning they have met the required standards in ensuring data transfers to and from the UK are safe. All references to GDPR will now be referred to as UK GDPR.
For the purpose of applicable data protection legislation (including UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 the practice responsible for your personal data, and referred to at the Data Controller, is OHP Bartley Green Medical Practice.
GP Earnings
All GP practices are required to declare mean earnings (i.e. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.
The average pay for GP’s working in the practice of Bartley Green Medical Practice in the last financial year was £33.364 before tax and National Insurance.
This is for 1 full time GP, 3 part time GPs and 1 locum GP who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.
Medical Record
Information about you and the care you receive is shared, in a secure system, by healthcare staff to support your treatment and care.
It is important that the NHS can use this information to plan and improve services for all patients. The NHS would like to link information from all the different places where you receive care, such as your GP, hospital and community services, to help provide a full picture. This will allow the NHS to compare the care you received in one area against the care you received in another, so the NHS can see what has worked best.
There are two levels of national data sharing of your information.
Type 1 Opt-out
The data held in your GP medical records is shared with other healthcare professionals for the purposes of your individual care. It is also shared with other organisations to support health and care planning and research.
You have a choice. If you are happy for your information to be used in this way you do not have to do anything. If you do not want your personally identifiable patient data to be shared outside of your GP practice for purposes except your own care, you can register an opt-out with your GP practice. This is known as a Type 1 Opt-out.
Type 1 Opt-outs may be discontinued in the future. If this happens then they may be turned into a National Data Opt-out. Your GP practice will tell you if this is going to happen and if you need to do anything. More information about the National Data Opt-out is here: https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/
You can use this form to: Medical Record Form
- register a Type 1 Opt-out, for yourself or for a dependent (if you are the parent or legal guardian of the patient) (to Opt-out)
- withdraw an existing Type 1 Opt-out, for yourself or a dependent (if you are the parent or legal guardian of the patient) if you have changed your preference (Opt-in)
This decision will not affect individual care and you can change your choice at any time, using this form.
Type 2 Opt-out
Information at NHS Digital which does not reveal your identity can then also be used by others, such as researchers and those planning health services, to make sure we provide the best care possible for everyone.
You have a choice. If you are happy for your information to be used in this way you do not have to do anything. If you have any concerns or wish to prevent this from happening, please check https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/manage-your-choice/ for further information on how to make your choice. GP practices are no longer able manage this type of opt-out.
For more information on either type of opt-out click here.
New Prescribing Policy in Birmingham and Solihull
The prescribing of over the counter medicines is changing. Your GP, nurse or pharmacist will not generally give you a prescription for over the counter medicines for a range of minor health concerns.
Instead, over the counter medicines are available to buy from your local pharmacy or supermarket.
The NHS currently spends around £136 million a year on prescriptions for medicines that can be bought from a pharmacy or supermarket, such as paracetamol.
The costs to the NHS for many of the items used to treat minor conditions are often higher than the prices for which they can be purchased over the counter as there are hidden costs. For example, a pack of 16 paracetamol 500mg tablets can be purchased for less than 50p from a pharmacy, whereas the cost to the NHS is around three times as much.
By reducing the amount it spends on over the counter medicines, the NHS can give priority to treatments for people with more serious conditions, such as cancer, diabetes and mental health problems.
Your local pharmacy can offer help and clinical advice to manage minor health concerns and if your symptoms suggest it’s more serious, they’ll ensure you get the care you need.
For more information, please download our poster.
Privacy Notice
This privacy notice explains why the GP Practice collects information about you, and how that information may be used.
As data controllers, GPs have responsibilities which are regulated by law under the General Data Protection Regulations. This means ensuring that your personal confidential data (PCD) is handled in ways that are safe, transparent and what you would reasonably expect.
Processing your Personal Data
Health care professionals maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received within the NHS (e.g. NHS Hospital Trust, GP Surgery, Walk-in clinic, etc.). These records help to provide the best possible healthcare.
NHS health records may be processed electronically, on paper or a mixture of both, and a combination of working practices and technology are used to ensure that your information is kept confidential and secure. Records held by this GP Practice may include the following information:
- Details about you, such as address, telephone numbers, DOB and next of kin
- Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments, etc.
- Notes and reports about your health
- Details about your treatment and care
- Results of investigations, such as laboratory tests, x-rays, etc.
- Relevant information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you
- Religious beliefs, ethnicity, sexuality etc (if required in a healthcare setting)
To ensure you receive the best possible care, your records are used to facilitate the care you receive, including contacting you. Information held about you may be used to help protect the health of the public and to help us manage the NHS and the services we provide. Limited information may be used within the GP practice for clinical audit to monitor the quality of the service we provided.
Storing your Data
All the personal data we process is processed by our staff in the UK however for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance this information may be located on servers within the European Union.
No third parties have access to your personal data unless the law allows them to do so, and appropriate safeguards have been put in place such as a Data Processing agreement. We have a Data Protection regime in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal and or special category data.
The data will remain in the UK at all times and will be fully encrypted both in transit and at rest. In doing this there will be no change to the control of access to your data and the hosted service provider will not have any access to the decryption keys. AWS is one of the world’s largest cloud companies, already supporting numerous public sector clients (including the NHS), and it offers the very highest levels of security and support.
TPP SystmOne
The Practice uses a clinical system provided by a Data Processor called TPP SystmOne.
The system is a secure centralised system which supports modules for every healthcare setting from primary care to hospitals, social care, and mental health. SystmOne provides clinicians and health professionals with a single shared Electronic Health Record (EHR) available in real time at the point of care.
The data will remain in the UK at all times and allows patient data to be shared securely across services—promoting efficiency and standardisation. Most importantly it enables services to improve the patient experience and deliver safer patient care.
Zero Tolerance
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.