Patients Rights and Responsibilities

 

BACK TO MAIN INDEX

 

You have rights to:

  • Receive treatment regardless of your sex, age or disability.
  • Receive emergency care on the day
  • Consult with a GP  for medical problems of any kind, though it will not always be possible to offer an appointment with the doctor of your choice.
  • Access the deputising service out of hours.
  • Be treated as an individual and have your privacy and dignity respected.
  • Have your treatment explained to you.
  • Referral for appropriate investigations, consultant opinions and care at a hospital or clinic when both you and the doctor treating you agree it is necessary and would be of benefit.
  • Patients aged 16 and over are entitled to an appointment with the Doctor
  • Confidentiality.
  • Complain without discrimination if there is a problem.
  • See medical records by applying in writing to your GP.
 

You are responsible for:

  • Making and keeping appointments.  If you are 10 minutes without a valid reason you may be asked to rebook.
  • Notifying the Surgery in good time if you are unable to keep your appointment.
  • Following the advice and treatment you receive.
  • Ordering repeat prescriptions in adequate time.
  • Taking any medicine that is prescribed and finishing the course of treatment.
  • Doing what you can to look after your own health and following advice on a healthy lifestyle.
  • Behaving in an acceptable manner and being polite to all our staff.
  • Switching off mobile phones when entering the premises. No food or drinking to be consumed in ALL consultion rooms
  • Informing the Practice of any change of address, name or telephone number, including mobile numbers
 

Medicines while at school

Guidance from the department of education makes it clear that the child can take non prescription self-care medicines with written permission from a parent or guardian.It is not necessary for Gps to write letters to confirm that this is appropriate.

 

Connect Care

At the moment, health and social care workers from different organisations in Lewisham and Greenwich do not have a system in place to share important information about your care automatically. This means that GPs, hospital staff, district nurses, occupational therapists and social workers don’t always have immediate access to all the information they need to provide the most timely and efficient care. To address this problem we are launching a new system of local electronic records.

The new system is called Connect Care. For more information on Connect Care click here.