All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present for any consultation.

Please let us know at the time of requesting an appointment or speak to your GP. If you would like to request an appointment, please visit our Consulting Room.

All members of the practice team are bound by a code of practice which includes keeping confidential any information about patients held within the practice or known by any member of the team.

It is a breach of contract for any member of staff to divulge any personal information about any other member of staff or patient. Any suggestion of this would lead to a disciplinary hearing and if proven, to a termination of employment.

Patient information is generally held under legal and ethical obligations of confidentiality. Information provided in confidence should not be used or disclosed in a form that might identify the patient without their consent.

Some information about patients is recorded on the practice computer system. This information may be discussed with other health care professionals or with local primary care organisation officers, as it is useful in confirming the standard of care offered to certain groups of patients. However, this information is anonymised and patients cannot be identified from it.

If you are travelling abroad, please note our policy has now changed.

Any patients travelling abroad are now to contact the practice requesting an up to date copy of your vaccination history. You will then be required to contact a private travel clinic who will assess what vaccinations you may require. Details of local private travel clinics can be found online.

Written confirmation of any required NHS vaccinations will be required prior to booking an appointment with our nursing team.

We require 8 weeks notice prior to date of your departure in line with NHS guidance.

Which Travel Vaccines are Free?

The following travel vaccines are available free on the NHS if your GP practice is signed up to provide vaccination (immunisation) services.

• polio (given as a combined diphtheria/tetanus/polio jab)
• typhoid
• hepatitis A
• cholera

These vaccines are free because they protect against diseases thought to represent the greatest risk to public health if they were brought into the country.

Which Travel Vaccines Will I Have to pay for?

You’ll have to pay for travel vaccinations against:

• hepatitis B
• Japanese encephalitis
• meningitis vaccines
• rabies
• tick-borne encephalitis
• tuberculosis (TB)
• yellow fever

Yellow fever vaccines are only available from designated centres.

The cost of travel vaccines that are not available on the NHS will vary, depending on the vaccine and number of doses you need.

Please visit www.nhs.uk/travel-vaccinations for more information.

Information about the GPs 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.

There are seven classes of information:

• Who we are and what we do
• What we spend and how we spend it
• What our priorities are and how we are doing
• How we make decisions
• Our policies and procedures
• Lists and registers
• Services the practice offers

For more information, please review the Information Commissioner’s Office guide on the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your practice takes privacy seriously and we want to provide you with information about your rights, who we share your information with and how we keep it secure.

Please use the links below to find more information about the practice and data protection.

• Our Data Protection Videos
• Your Information
• Children and Young People
• What We Do with Your Information
• What Else Do We Use Your Information For?
• Sharing When Required by Law
• Information Rights
• Case Finding and Profiling
• Norfolk Sharing Partners and Projects
• Information Technology
• Keeping Your Information Safe
• How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
• Our Use of CCTV
• Our Use of Telephone Recording
• Our Use of Eclipse
• Norfolk and Waveney Primary Care Networks

All GP Practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver GP services to patients at each Practice.

The average pay for GPs working at Marriotts Medical Practices in the last financial year was £52,004 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 1 full time GP, 4 part time GPs and 3 locum GPs who worked in the Practice for more than six months.

If you would like to submit a suggestion or comment, please use our Feedback triage.

Complaints

If you have a complaint or a concern about any part of the service we provide please let us know. If you let us know immediately by raising your concerns with the staff directly involved we can try and put things right straight away. If you are unable to do this, or would prefer not to, you can either telephone or write to the practice manager as soon as possible. All complaints will be dealt with in line with the Local Authority Social Care and NHS Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 and therefore you must let us have the details of your complaint within 12 months of the incident which is the cause for concern.

Following receipt of your complaint we will:

• Treat you with respect and courtesy.
• Acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days.
• Investigate your complaint within 21 days of the date that you raise it with us.
• Provide you with an appropriate response which will include the outcome of the investigation.
• Provide the health authority with an annual report about the complaints we have received. The report will include information about about what actions have been taken or recommendations that have been made.

If you are unhappy with our response to your complaint you have the right to ask the Health Service Ombudsman to review your case.

Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else

Please note that we abide to the strict rules of medical confidentiality. If you wish to complain on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. Signed authorisation by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

There is a 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. Over time it will build to include information about other health issues considered important to your wellbeing.

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 asking the surgery directly.

Enhanced Summary Care Record

If you wanted to ‘enhance’ your record it would include the following information:

• Significant medical history (past and present)
• Reason for medication
• Anticipatory care information (important in the management of long term conditions)
• Communication preferences
• End of life care information
• Immunisations

You can opt in for an enhanced summary care record at any time.

Children Under The Age Of 16

Patients under 16 years will have an enhanced summary care record created for them unless their GP surgery is advised otherwise. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under 16 then you should make this information available to them if they are old enough to decide for themselves if they want a summary care record.

Whatever you decide, you can change your mind at any time.

If you are a family member or carer of a person and you have concerns that they may not have the mental capability to make this decision, please contact the Practice.

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 the Summary Care Record Opt Out form.

More Information

For further information, please visit the HSCIC Website.

We currently train and provide clinical experience for Year 1, Year 2 and Year 4 medical students over a period of 55 days per year. Medical students often sit in on consultations. If they are sitting in with the doctor or nurse you are seeing, you will be asked to give your consent that you are happy with this.

The students also learn a huge amount from talking to patients in depth about their medical conditions, so we often contact patients with specific medical conditions to come in and discuss their experiences with medical students on specific teaching days. This is, of course, entirely voluntary and your care will not be affected in any way if you would prefer not to do this.

Here at Bacon Road Medical Centre, we are proud to be teaching and training the next generation of GPs.

As part of the teaching, we are keen to provide the students with ‘real life’ conditions and would love to have you involved.

If you suffer, or have suffered, from any of the conditions listed below and would be happy to speak with our students, please let us know when requesting your appointment. Leela, our medical student administrator, will then contact you to discuss further. For appointments, please visit our Consulting Room.

If you have any of the following, and would be happy to share your experience with our students, please contact us:

• Bone pain
• Soft tissue pain
• Suffered a fall
• Gait disturbance and limping child
• Fractures and dislocation
• Monoarticular pain
• Polyarticular pain
• Connective tissue problems
• Spinal pain
• Haematological cancers
• Anaemias
• Bleeding and clotting
• Rashes
• Pruritus and acne
• Lumps, bumps and ulceration
• Blisters, rashes and hair loss
• Chest pain (last 12-24 months)
• Valve disorders / murmurs
• AAA and peripheral vascular disease
• Stroke
• Arrhythmia, syncope and cardiac arrest
• Shortness of breath & heart failure
• Hypertension and risk
• Noisy breathing
• Acute cough
• Wheeze and breathlessness
• Chronic breathlessness
• Chest pain / PE
• Chronic cough
• Haemoptysis

The NHS operates 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.