As a GP Practice, we are committed to promoting safe access to our services and offering choice, wherever possible, in the services we provide and the way we deliver them. Practice staff are trained to support patients and their families for clinical and administrative needs. Our reception team have undergone training to support the delivery of patient facing services.
At Beech Tree Surgery we are committed to ensuring everyone is treated with respect and dignity including all patients, their families, carers and our Practice team.
An Acceptable Behaviour Agreement (otherwise known as a doctor-patient contract) is an individual written agreement between a patient and their GP Practice. It can be a useful tool to support changes to behaviour and can clarify what the Practice expects of the patient and what the patient can expect of the Practice.
In some circumstances either before, after or when a warning / zero tolerance letter is issued, we may also ask patients to enter into an Acceptable Behaviour Agreement, which could be considered when a patient has acted unacceptably. In this instance, the Practice team is willing to continue a therapeutic relationship with the patient, provided the patient complies with the conditions outlined in this agreement.
Practice responsibilities to patients
As a Practice, we will ensure that staff are able to access training that is relevant and appropriate to their role and will enable services to be delivered safely and to a high quality, to all registered patients. We know that communication is key to building a positive relationship with patients; we will ask and record how you wish to be communicated with by the Practice team.
The Practice will make available the following services to all registered patients:
- A consultation with an appropriate healthcare professional. The need for a consultation may be assessed using patient triage and/or care navigation. Patient triage will determine whether a face-to-face appointment is required and who the most appropriate healthcare professional within the Practice is to address the need. Care navigation may be used if a patient provides information regarding their query or symptoms. It can be determined quickly and clearly who the most appropriate healthcare professional is to address the need. This may not always be a GP. If patients do not wish to provide any details of their reason for contacting the Practice or would prefer to see a particular healthcare professional, this may still be booked.
- Beech Tree Surgery offers consultations through several different ways. These include telephone, online, video, individual face to face and group face to face.
- Beech Tree Surgery offers consultations with several different healthcare professionals. These may include a General Practitioner, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Practice Nurse, Clinical Pharmacist, Paramedic, Healthcare Assistant, Social Prescriber/Wellbeing Coordinator, Mental Health Practitioner, First Contact Physiotherapist, Community Pharmacist.
- Beech Tree Surgery offers several online services. These include online appointment booking for consultations which do not require triage first, such as cervical screening (smear test), long term condition reviews, immunisations etc. You are also able to cancel any appointment you have through online services. We also offer online ordering of repeat prescriptions, access to your full medical record, including test results and letters, two-way messaging with the Practice, SMS text reminder services and access to nhs.uk to check your symptoms and search for health information.
- Beech Tree Surgery offers appointments on a range of days and times. These include during core opening hours Monday to Friday, after 8:00am at our main site. Evening and weekend appointments may be available to you
- Beech Tree Surgery offers several different ways to contact us. These include by telephone, via our online consultation platform Klinik and through the Practice email address
- Beech Tree Surgery offers several different medical and non-medical services to support you. These include annual reviews to help you manage your long-term condition well, vaccinations to protect you from a number of viruses, wellbeing support through our social prescribing service to help you with any non-medical concerns you may have. This may include connecting you with other community and voluntary sector partners. Screening services, to help early diagnosis of a number of cancers or serious diseases.
- Beech Tree Surgery offers a repeat prescribing service. Our policy is to aim to provide repeat prescriptions within 2-3 working days. Requests for repeat prescriptions can be accepted online, including via the NHS App or in person, however we are unable to accept requests over the telephone.
Patient responsibilities to the Practice
In order to remain registered with our Practice we are providing this guide to set out the type of conduct that is expected of all patients.
All patients are expected to behave in the following manner:
- Be polite and respectful towards all individuals (staff and other patients).
- Do not make inappropriate or unacceptable remarks to any staff or other patients at the Practice including any abusive remarks related to any individuals:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage or civil partnership
- pregnancy
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
- Do not undertake any form of threatening abuse or violence towards any individual (staff and other patients) at the Practice.
- Use our services responsibly including:
- To book routine appointments in accordance with the Practice’s policy
- To request urgent appointments only for genuine urgent conditions
- To engage with any remote appointments, we may offer over the telephone (or by video)
- Attend face-to-face services where it is important to be seen in person, (including when physically able to do so, rather than requesting a home visit)
- Attend all appointments on time
- Cancel any booked appointments that are no longer required
- Request repeat prescriptions in good time, ensuring that all items are ordered together rather than in individual lots
- Use our health care professionals time in an appropriate manner e.g. do not seek appointments for minor ailments that can be self-treated in the first instance.
- Raise only genuine concerns or complaints you may have about your care or the services we provide you.
- Respect surgery premises and property.
- Attend the surgery premises for the purpose of engaging with our services
In return, as a patient you can expect to:
- Continue to access all out services, to be provided with respect, dignity and confidentiality
- Raise any concerns or complaints about your care or our services and that these will be investigated and responded to.
Any patients who commit any inappropriate or unacceptable behaviours towards a GP, Practice staff, other patients or the surgery premises or property risk being removed from the Practice list with 8-days’ notice. We will normally provide a warning letter, which will be held on record for 12 months before issuing such a notice.
Any threatening, abusive or violent incidents will not be tolerated. Any such incident will be reported to the police and will mean your immediate removal from the Practice list and your care transferred to a special allocation scheme which manages violent and aggressive patients.