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.

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

Care Data – Frequently Asked Questions

Care.Data opt out letter

Opt Out Flowchart

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.

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.

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.

Summary

Information is a vital asset, both in terms of the clinical management of individual patients and the efficient management of services and resources. It plays a key part in clinical governance, service planning and performance management.

It is therefore of paramount importance to ensure that information is efficiently managed, and that appropriate policies, procedures and management accountability provide a robust governance framework for information management.

Principles

The Practice recognises the need for an appropriate balance between openness and confidentiality in the management and use of information. The Practice fully supports the principles of corporate governance and recognises its public accountability, but equally places importance on the confidentiality of, and the security arrangements to safeguard, both personal information about patients and staff and commercially sensitive information. The Practice also recognises the need to share patient information with other health organisations and other agencies in a controlled manner consistent with the interests of the patient and, in some circumstances, the public interest.

The Practice believes that accurate, timely and relevant information is essential to deliver the highest quality health care. As such it is the responsibility of all clinicians and managers to ensure and promote the quality of information and to actively use information in decision making processes.

There are 4 key interlinked strands to the information governance policy:

• Openness
• Legal compliance
• Information security
• Quality assurance

Openness

• Non-confidential information on the Practice and its services should be available to the public through a variety of media, in line with the Practice’s code of openness
• The Practice will establish and maintain policies to ensure compliance with the Freedom of Information Act
• Patients should have ready access to information relating to their own health care, their options for treatment and their rights as patients
• The Practice will have clear procedures and arrangements for liaison with the press and broadcasting media
• The Practice will have clear procedures and arrangements for handling queries from patients and the public

Legal Compliance

• The Practice regards all identifiable personal information relating to patients as confidential
• The Practice regards all identifiable personal information relating to staff as confidential except where national policy on accountability and openness requires otherwise
• The Practice will establish and maintain policies to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act, Human Rights Act and the common law confidentiality
• The Practice will establish and maintain policies for the controlled and appropriate sharing of patient information with other agencies, taking account of relevant legislation (e.g. Health and Social Care Act, Crime and Disorder Act, Protection of Children Act)

Information Security

• The Practice will establish and maintain policies for the effective and secure management of its information assets and resources
• The Practice will undertake or commission annual assessments and audits of its information and IT security arrangements
• The Practice will promote effective confidentiality and security practice to its staff through policies, procedures and training
• The Practice will establish and maintain incident reporting procedures and will monitor and investigate all reported instances of actual or potential breaches of confidentiality and security

Information Quality Assurance

• The Practice will establish and maintain policies and procedures for information quality assurance and the effective management of records
• The Practice will undertake or commission annual assessments and audits of its information quality and records management arrangements
• Managers are expected to take ownership of, and seek to improve, the quality of information within their services
• Wherever possible, information quality should be assured at the point of collection
• Data standards will be set through clear and consistent definition of data items, in accordance with national standards.
• The Practice will promote information quality and effective records management through policies, procedures/user manuals and training

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:

As part of our commitment to compassionate, high-quality care, we follow the national “You and Your General Practice” Patient Charter, published by NHS England.

This charter sets out what you can expect from us—and what we ask of you—as we work together to support your health and wellbeing. It reflects shared values across all GP practices in England, including:

• Respect, kindness, and dignity in every interaction
• Clear communication and timely access to care
• A safe environment for patients and staff
• Opportunities to give feedback and help shape services

We are proud to be part of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), and we uphold these standards in everything we do—from your first contact with reception to your clinical care and beyond.

Read the full Patient Charter here:

You and Your General Practice – NHS England

If you need this information in another language or format, please let us know. We’re here to make sure every patient feels informed, respected, and supported.

Emis Practice Privacy Notice (Includes Data
Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR))

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:

1. Summary Care Record (SCR)
2. GP to GP Record Transfers
3. Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
4. 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.

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

Download the opt out form

Please note that all calls, incoming and outgoing are recorded for training, quality and disrepute resolution purposes.

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.