Practice Policies & Patient Information
Vision and Values
Our mission statement:
At Church Lane Surgery, we are a close-knit, compassionate team dedicated to delivering patient-focused care with integrity, empathy, and professionalism. We strive to create a welcoming and inclusive environment where every individual—staff and patient alike—is treated with respect, understanding, and kindness.
Guided by ethical practice and a commitment to continuous improvement, we work collaboratively to support one another, embrace challenges, and serve our community with resilience and resourcefulness. Our mission is to provide healthcare that is not only efficient and informative but also deeply human—where compassion meets excellence, and every voice matters.
Together, we are more than a surgery. We are a family, united in purpose and driven by care.
Values
- Treat each other with dignity and respect
- Encourage innovation to inspire people to do great things
- Be ambassadors for the the patients of Church lane Surgery
- Work with our partners for the benefit of local people
- Value individuality and diversity and promote equity of access based on need
- Deliver high quality services that are evidence based and make the most of available resources.
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. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.
Care.Data
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 we, the NHS, can use this information to plan and improve services for all patients. We would like to link information from all the different places where you receive care, such as your GP, hospital and community service, to help us provide a full picture. This will allow us to compare the care you received in one area against the care you received in another, so we can see what has worked best.
Information such as your postcode and NHS number, but not your name, will be used to link your records in a secure system, so your identity is protected. Information which does not reveal your identity can then 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 speak to practice staff or download the opt out form below, complete it and return it to the practice
We need to make sure that you know this is happening and the choices you have.
Resources
How information about you helps us to provide better care
Complaints
We welcome feedback about your experiences, as it lets the practice know what we are doing well and where we could improve.
Talk to us
The Practice is committed to providing high-quality, person-centred care and treatment that’s both safe and effective. However, we understand that there are times when things go wrong. If something goes wrong, or you’re dissatisfied with what we have or haven’t done, tell us and we’ll do our best to put things right. If we can’t resolve matters in the way you want, we’ll explain why it’s not possible to do as you suggest.
Understandably, you might be upset or distressed when formally raising concerns about you or your loved one’s care. As a result of this, our practice team will treat you with respect and dignity throughout this emotional time. It’s expected you show the same courtesy to them.
We hope that, if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and allow us to improve our services.
Who to talk to
You can speak to any member of staff initially about your concerns. This allows us to work with you to resolve any concern you may have without going through a formal process. Most complaints are best resolved within the practice, and formal complaints should be made via our Complaints Manager.
Please click the following link Complaints form to access the form.
Once the form has been completed you can drop the form into reception, or you can email the form to cls.admin@nhs.net.
For more information, please read our Church Lane Surgery Complaints Procedure
If you feel unable to raise your complaint with us directly or if you believe this is not appropriate, you can raise your complaint with the ICB who commission and pay for the NHS services you use by:
Email: at wyicb.pals@nhs.net
Telephone: 01924 552150 Monday to Friday 9-4.30 pm, excluding bank holidays.
Please note that the team receives a high number of telephone calls daily and may not be able to respond instantly to each one.
In writing: Patient Advice and Liaison Service, West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, White Rose House West Parade, Wakefield WF1 1LT
Please note: The ICB is unable to consider or reconsider the same concerns or complaints you have raised with us.
Citizens Advice Bureau also provides information and advice about making complaints.
Take it Further
If, after receiving our final decision, you remain dissatisfied you can ask the Health Service Ombudsman, to independently review, your complaint.
The Ombudsman is independent of the NHS and free to use. It can help resolve your complaint and tell the NHS how to put things right if it has got them wrong.
The Ombudsman only has legal powers to investigate certain complaints. You must have received a final response from the Practice before the Ombudsman can look at your complaint and it will generally not investigate your complaint if it happened more than 12 months ago unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Address:
All post should be sent to their main office in Manchester:
Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman
Citygate
Mosley Street
Manchester
M2 3HQ
Phone: 0345 015 4033
Their lines are open: Monday to Thursday 8.30 am to 5.00 pm | Friday 8.30 am to 12 pm.
Before considering taking this step, we hope you would let us know what aspect of the complaint has not been dealt with satisfactorily and provide an opportunity for us to consider whether there is anything further that could be done locally to resolve matters.
For more information, please read our Church Lane Surgery Complaints Procedure
Confidentiality & Medical Records
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.
Docmail
Freedom of Information
Information about the General Practioners 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.
Patient and Liaison Services (PALS)
As part of the national changes that are happening to the NHS and the closedown of primary care trusts,the current arrangements for the patient advice and liaison service (PALS) will change. From 2 April 2013, PALS will be delivered by NHS West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) which is providing the service on behalf of the ten Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across West Yorkshire.
The service will be open from 8.30am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday and will be based at Douglas Mill,Bradford. The service can be contacted on 0800 0525 270 or by email at: WestYorksPALS@nhs.net .
In addition NHS England is setting up a customer contact centre. They will be dealing with calls from patients and the public about issues relating to primary care, for example calls about GP practices or registering with a dentist. For more information, you can:
- visit http://www.commissioningboard.nhs.uk/contact-us/
- Telephone – 0300 311 22 33
- E-Mail – nhscommissioningboard@hscic.gov.uk
For concerns or complaints about Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust
If you have concerns or wish to complain about your treatment or treatment of a relative then in the first instance please raise your concerns with a member of staff in the hospital who is providing care to the patient. This might be a nurse or midwife, doctor or health worker. They should be able to resolve this directly with you or find someone to help you.
The Matron for a ward or department is also available for you to express any concerns to and there is always a Duty matron available out of hours. Matrons can be contacted via the main switch board number at either hospital site.
Calderdale Royal Hospital 01422 357171
Huddersfield Royal Infirmary 01484 342000
Raising your concerns or complaints
If you feel you need help with raising your concerns or complaints and wish to speak to someone please contact:
Patient Advice and Complaints Service
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
Outside of these hours you can leave a telephone or email message for the team to respond to the next working day.
Our contact details are:
| Telephone: | 0800 013 0018 |
| Email: | patientadvice@cht.nhs.uk Please provide your name, address, telephone number and date of birth. If you are not the patient please also provide their details and state whether you are a relative, carer or friend of the patient. Consent will be requested from the patient or next of kin before sharing information. |
| Letter: | Write to us: Patient Advice & Complaints Service, Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, Acre Street, Lindley, Huddersfield, HD3 3EA |
| Text: | 07766 905817 (Please note this is a text number only) |
Privacy Notice
Statement of Intent regarding IT Developments
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:
- Summary Care Record (SCR)
- 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 our stance with regards to these developments.
Summary Care Record (SCR)
NHS England require practices to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis, to the summary care record (SCR) or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.
Having your Summary Care Record (SCR) available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.
Of course, if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record.
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.
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.
We confirm these arrangements are in place and that we undertake annual training to ensure that all our data is handled correctly and safely via the Information Governance Toolkit.
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 several weeks to reach your new surgery.
With GP to GP record transfers your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.
Church Lane Surgery already uses GP2GP.
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 on-line. This is done via the Patient Access online facility which communicates with Emis Web (the surgery clinical system).
If you do not already have a user name and password for this system please ask at reception.
We can confirm that Church Lane Surgery have been ready to provide access to the Summary care Record but have been advised that our clinical IT system does not meet the requirements of the GP System of Choice for IT systems. We await national guidance.
Summary Care Record
There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). It is an electronic record which contains information about the medicines you take, allergies you suffer from and any bad reactions to medicines you have had.
Why do I need a Summary Care Record?
Storing information in one place makes it easier for healthcare staff to treat you in an emergency, or when your GP practice is closed.
This information could make a difference to how a doctor decides to care for you, for example which medicines they choose to prescribe for you.
Who can see it?
Only healthcare staff involved in your care can see your Summary Care Record.
How do I know if I have one?
Over half of the population of England now have a Summary Care Record. You can find out whether Summary Care Records have come to your area by looking at our interactive map or by asking your GP
Do I have to have one?
No, it is not compulsory. If you choose to opt out of the scheme, then you will need to complete a form and bring it along to the surgery. You can use the form at the foot of this page.
More Information
For further information visit the NHS Care records website
Telephone Calls
Please note that all calls, incoming and outgoing are recorded for training, quality and disrepute resolution purposes.
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.