Suggestions & Complaints

If you have any comments or suggestions about the service we provide, please let us know. We value your comments and all the staff will do their best to deal with your concerns.

The surgery offers a complaints procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints about the service we provide. Please ask for our Complaints Manager, Lynn Burt, who will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and work with you to ensure that your issues are addressed as swiftly as possible.

If still dissatisfied, you should address your complaint to Suffolk Practitioners Services Unit.

A copy of the Surgery Complaints Leaflet is available at reception.

Your Responsibilities

• We ask that you extend the same courtesy and politeness to the practice team as you would expect to receive.
• Please do everything you can to keep appointments, tell us as soon as possible if you cannot. If you are a new patient please be ready to tell us details of your past illnesses, medication, hospital admissions and other relevant details.
• While privacy will be respected by staff, it would be helpful if you could indicate the type of appointment you require.
• Please try to call outside the peak surgery times for non-urgent requests. Monday morning is always very busy, so avoid if at all possible!
• Please do not call out of hours, except in real cases of emergency. Whenever possible it is best to wait for the next surgery.
• You are responsible for your own health and that of your children. You should take appropriate action and advice.
• You should not expect to be given a prescription every time you visit the doctor.
• It is always the right of patients to transfer to another practice if they wish.

Zero Tolerance

The Practice has a duty of care not only to its patients but also to the staff who work here. We take seriously any threatening, abusive or violent behaviour toward them. If this should occur we will issue you with a formal warning. If the behaviour is repeated we will immediately make application, without further notice, for your removal from the Practice list.  

Confidentiality

In order to provide you with a high standard of health care and treatment you will be asked for personal information. The practice is fully computerised and computers are used in doctors and nurses consultations and in all areas of practice administration. We have an obligation to keep all such information confidential and to comply fully with the Data Protection Act.

No information concerning you will be divulged to a third party without your prior knowledge and consent. We may use some of the information for other reasons: for example to help us protect the health of the public generally and to see that the NHS runs efficiently.

Information may also be needed to help train clinical staff and carry out medical and other health research for the benefit of everyone.

You may be receiving care from other people as well as the NHS. We may need to share information about you for your benefit.

We only ever use or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it in your and everyone’s interest. The law strictly controls the sharing of some types of very sensitive personal information. Whenever we can we remove details which identify you. Sometimes the law requires us to pass on information: for example, to notify birth. Anyone who receives information from us is under a legal duty to keep it confidential.

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and you have the right to say no if you do not want information about you given to others.