Dudley GP Practice Charter

Our Charter

• Our charter is a statement of what you can expect from the practice.
• Our charter has been developed in consultation with patients and general practice(s) across Dudley borough.
• Our charter is endorsed and reviewed by Healthwatch Dudley; an organisation that exists to ensure that the patient voice is heard.

Our Commitments

• We aim to provide our patients with the best possible care.
• We will treat all patients equally. We will not discriminate on the grounds of gender, gender identity, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion or age.
• We will listen and involve our patients in providing services that respond to their needs.

Making an Appointment

• We will plan the number of appointments we provide based on our appointment demand, and review this routinely to meet the needs of our patients.
• We will ensure that patient needs are consistently assessed and prioritised allowing us to provide patients with the most appropriate care or other response, from the right member of the practice team, including signposting or referring patients to other appropriate services.
• We will ensure that every patient will be assessed and prioritised according to need in the same way, regardless of whether contacting the practice by phone, online or in person.
• We will provide a variety of options for advice and consultations including face to face, online, and over the telephone.
• We will continuously review our online platforms, telephone systems, booking systems, websites to address patient need.

Signposting

• We recognise the important role our staff play in signposting to services of help, advocacy and support, which helps patients to feel empowered to take action to support their own health and wellbeing and in turn improves access to primary care services. We will provide clear accessible explanations and examples of signposting to other services, including NHS 111, emergency information, pharmacy services, mental health numbers, and other relevant resources.
• We will ensure that the practice is making best use of social prescribers i.e. staff who have access to a directory of health, social and voluntary sector services within Dudley to best meet patient need.
• Commitment to share information on other services and practice staff roles through a number of avenues such as practice newsletter, practice information screens, social media, posters etc.

Digital Services

• We will offer and promote to our patients (and those acting on their behalf) the following:
  • an online consultation tool.
  • a secure electronic communication method.
  • an online facility to provide and update personal or contact information.
• We are committed to ensuring that all of our patients can access and utilise our digital services should they wish too.
• We are committed to ensuring that our staff are trained and have the necessary skills to support patients to access programmes such as the Black Country Connected Programme.
• For those who are unable to use digital services we will work with you to find alternatives.

The Practice Website

• We are committed to developing a website not to simply display information, but to provide an area where patients can interact and complete tasks for example:
• Make, change, or cancel an appointment.
• Get a repeat prescription.
• Get a sick note for work.
• Get test results.
• Register with/join the practice.
• Get the practice phone number.
• Find out the practice opening times.
• Find the practice address.
• The ability to provide feedback on patient experience.
• Online forms (provided via ‘online consultation tools’) should be available via the practice website or via tools like the NHS App to provide an easy route for patients to explain what they need and to request support. 

Health Inequalities

• We are committed to identifying and providing services that support and help us to provide equitable services to all our patients, with the aim of reducing health inequalities related to access.

Language and Communication Barriers

• We are committed to ensuring that patients are able to access primary care services in a way that ensures their language and communication requirements do not prevent them receiving the same quality of healthcare as others. This includes reasonable adjustments for a wide range of needs, including different languages, stroke recovery, Deaf/BSL users, learning disabilities, stammering, and other communication needs.

Longer Appointments

• We are committed to reviewing and adjusting people’s appointment length if they need more time with a Doctor or Nurse to make sure they understand the information they are given.

Registration Rights and Eligibility Criteria

• We are dedicated to ensuring that everyone can register with our practice without the need for ID or proof of address. We will make the registration process as simple, accessible and visible as possible, particularly for vulnerable groups such as those without a fixed address, refugees, and migrants.

*if a GP surgery only accepts patients inside their boundary*

• We are dedicated to ensuring people who live within our boundary [available on the practice website] can register without the need for ID. We may ask for supporting documentation to ensure patients live within the area. Where people who live within the area, but do not have a fixed address, we will be flexible with supporting documentation required and will allow them to register using the practice address.
• If we refuse to register a patient with the practice, we will provide a written explanation within 14 days.

Safer Surgeries

• We are committed to addressing the particular barriers to primary care faced by migrants in vulnerable circumstances, including refugees and survivors of trafficking.
• We are committed to registering and becoming a ‘safer surgery’ to ensure that everyone is able to access the healthcare they’re entitled to.

LGBTQ+ Friendly

• We are committed to improving the experiences of LGBTQ+ people accessing primary care services recognising our commitment to LGBTQ+ excellence in healthcare in line with Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) guidelines.

Veterans

• We are committed to supporting veterans healthcare and will work towards improving our identification and understanding of their needs and referring appropriately.

Training

• We will ensure that our staff especially those who interact with patients, have the necessary skills and training to recognise and understand the importance of addressing health inequalities and are well prepared to identify and support patients facing barriers related to communication, literacy, and other challenges and support them with accessing primary care.

Working with Patients

• We are committed to working with our patients to understand and respond to their needs.
• We are committed to supporting and developing our Patient Participation Group (PPG) by actively involving patients in shaping our services. We will regularly update patients about upcoming PPG meetings and ensure feedback from the National Patient Survey and Friends and Family Test is shared and acted upon. Information about these meetings will be clearly displayed in communal areas and our website to encourage participation and engagement. 

Working with Healthwatch Dudley

• We recognise the value and importance of Healthwatch Dudley in gathering the views of the patients across Dudley on challenges and opportunities for practices to improve access.
• We are committed to working with Healthwatch Dudley to better understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities to make improvements in access.
• Contact details will be available for anyone who wishes to share their experiences or if they feel the charter’s points are not being upheld after addressing their concerns directly with the practice.
• Healthwatch Dudley can be contacted on
  • Phone: 03000 111 001(local rate)
  • Email: Hello@healthwatchdudley.co.uk
  • Website: www.healthwatchdudley.co.uk
  • Address: 7 Albion Street, Brierley Hill, DY5 3EE

Working with NHS England and the Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB)

• We recognise the value and importance of NHS England and the ICB who set the standards that we are required to meet.
• We are committed to working with NHS England and the ICB to implement the national standards and requirements set for general practice.

Patient Charter

Whilst we are committed to upholding our responsibilities and delivering care in line with this charter, we appreciate your understanding that some factors may be beyond our control and thank you for your patience in these situations.

We ask of you

• We ask that you value the dedication of our staff, as we do. We expect all patients to treat them with respect. Abuse towards our team will not be tolerated.
• We ask if you are unable to attend for an appointment please let us know, so that we can offer it to someone else.
• We ask that if you are unavoidably delayed you let us know as soon as possible, so that we can make alternative arrangements to meet your needs.
• We ask you to be patient if the clinician is running late. This is often due to unforeseeable emergencies, but you are welcome to ask the Receptionist for more information.
• We ask you to only request a home visit for those who are unable to leave the house. If you need a home visit, if possible please telephone before 10.30am.
• We ask you to provide our reception staff with information about your condition and we reassure you that our staff have received comprehensive training in order to signpost patients to appropriate source of help, which maybe in the practice or somewhere else.
• We ask that if you are unclear about your treatment please discuss this with a member of the practice team. Try to follow any medical advice given to you.
• We ask you to let us know if you change your contact details, so we can keep your records up to date.
• We ask you to share any specific communication or accessibility requirements with us, to enable us to better meet your needs.
• We ask you to respond or act upon any correspondence received in a timely manner, in order for us to provide continuing appropriate medical care.
• We ask patients to raise any concerns directly with the practice so that these can be addressed promptly.

As a patient you have the right to:

• Be registered with a named doctor
• Change doctor if desired (but please remember that you may have to see any of the doctors if your need is urgent)
• Receive emergency care
• Receive appropriate drugs and medicines
• Be referred for specialist or second opinion if they and GP agrees
• See your medical records or a copy, subject to certain laws
• Know that by law, everyone working for the NHS must keep the contents of your medical records private

With these rights come responsibilities for the public. That means being:

• Courteous to staff at all times
• As prompt as possible for all appointments
• Responsible for cancelling appointments in adequate time

An accountable GP will be assigned to every patient and where a preference is expressed reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate this. DR Ruth Hearn is the accountable GP.

Proxy access was developed to allow someone other than the patient to access and manage parts of their GP online services account. The person acting on behalf of the patient for example a parent or carer (the proxy) is given their own online access account (rather than using the patient’s login details).

To obtain proxy access a person must be registered for online access at the practice where the patient they are acting for is registered. Proxy access is the recommended alternative to sharing login details. Every practice is required to verify patient identity documentation, or individually vouch for each patient requesting access to online services.

Please contact the practice who will advise how to request Proxy Access.

Practice Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you receive from the doctors or any of the staff working in this practice, please let us know.  We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS system for dealing with complaints.  Our complaints system conforms to the NHS Complaints Regulations 2018.

How to Complain

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned.  If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a written complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible – ideally, within a matter of days or at most a few weeks.  This is because it will enable us to establish what happened more easily.  If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

• Within twelve months of the incident that caused the problem; or
• Within twelve months of discovering details of the incident that caused the problem.

Complaints should be addressed to Rachel Critcher, Practice Manager.  Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with Rachel Critcher in order to discuss your concerns. Rachel will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.  It will help us greatly if you are as specific as possible about your complaint. During the Covid-19 pandemic we would advise that this takes place over the telephone rather than a face to face meeting.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within three working days and offer to discuss with you at a mutually convenient time:

• the manner in which your complaint is to be handled; and
• the period within which the investigation of your complaint is likely to be completed which NHS England currently expect to be within a 6 month period and
• the further period within which we agree a timescale with you for responding to your complaint.

If the investigation is likely to take more than the agreed timescale we shall aim to keep you informed of its progress.

After completing the investigation we shall as soon as reasonably practicable send you a written response which will include:

• an explanation of how the complaint has been considered; and
• the conclusions reached in relation to the complaint, including any matters for which the complaint specifies, or which we consider, that remedial action is needed; and
• confirmation as to whether we are satisfied that any action needed in consequence of your complaint has been taken or is proposed to be taken.
• details of your right to take your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service

Complaining on behalf of someone else 

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality.  If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so.  A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

Complaining to Commissioner of the Service

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 provide an opportunity to improve our practice. But this does not affect your right to approach the Black Country Integrated Care Board as the commissioner of the service. if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us directly in the first instance.

Telephone: 0300 0120 281 Email: bcicb.time2talk@nhs.net

Writing to them at: Time2Talk, NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB) Civic Centre, St Peter’s Square, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SH

In these circumstances you should contact:

• NHS England, PO Box 16738, Redditch, B97 9PT
• Tel:  0300 311 2233
• By email: England.contactus@nhs.uk – please include ‘For the attention of the Complaints Team’ in the subject line

NHS Complaints Advocacy Service

You may also wish to contact the local NHS Complaints Advocacy Service for support and advice in making your complaint.

They can be contacted at POhWER, PO Box 17943, Birmingham, B9 9PB

Tel: 0300 456 2370, Text: 81025,  or by email: pohwer@pohwer.net

Complaining to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to take your complaint to the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is independent of government and the NHS.  The service is confidential and free. There are time limits for taking a complaint to the Ombudsman although the Ombudsman can waive them if it is thought there is a good reason to do so.

If you have any questions about whether the Ombudsman will be able to help you, or about how to make a complaint:

The Ombudsman may be contacted at:

The Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP.  Telephone (helpline): 0345 015 4033, e-mail: phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk or fax 0300 061 4000. Further information is available at www.ombudsman.org.uk

The average pay for GPs working in Stourside Medical Practice in the last financial year 2023/24 was £64,629 before tax and National Insurance.

This is for 1 full-time GP, 5 part-time GP’s and 3 locum GP’s who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.

NHS England require that the net earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised, and the required disclosure is shown below. However it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice, and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.

The practice does not do Mental Capacity Assessments.

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential.

We have a duty to:

• Maintain full and accurate records of the care we provide to you.
• Keep records about you confidential, secure and accurate.
• Provide information in a format that is accessible to you (i.e., in large type if you are partially sighted).

We will not share information that identifies you for any reason, unless:

• You ask us to do so.
• We ask, and you give us specific permission.
• We must do this by law.
• We have special permission for health or research purposes.
• We have special permission because the interests of the public are thought to be of greater importance than your confidentiality.

Our guiding principle is that we are holding your records in strict confidence.

Who are our partner organisations?

We may share information with the following main partner organisations:

• NHS England.
• Our commissioners.
• NHS trusts / organisation (hospitals, CCG’s).
• Ambulance service.
• Social services.

We may also share your information, with your consent and subject to strict sharing protocols about how it will be used, with:

• Education services.
• Local authorities.
• Voluntary sector providers.
• Private sector.

Anyone who receives information from us also has a legal duty to keep it all confidential.

If you believe the trust has breached any of your data protection rights

You have a right to complain to the UK Supervisory Authority as below:

Information Commissioner

Wycliffe house
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Website: Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

Why we collect information about you

In the practice we aim to provide you with the highest quality of healthcare. To do this we must keep records about you, your health and the care we have provided or plan to provide to you.

These records may include:

• Basic details about you, such as address, date of birth, next of kin
• Contact we have had with you such as clinical visits
• Details and records about your treatment and care
• Results of x-rays, laboratory test etc
• Relevant information from people who care for you and know you well, such as health professionals and relatives

It is good practice for people in the NHS who provide care to:

• Discuss and agree with you what they are going to record about you
• Give you a copy of letters they are writing about you
• Show you what they have recorded about you, if you ask

We will only store your information in identifiable form for a long as in necessary in and in accordance with the NHS England’s Rules found within the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016 page on the NHS Digital website.

How your records are used

The people who care for you use your records to:

• Provide a good basis for all health decisions made by you and care professionals
• Allow you to work with those providing care
• Make sure your care is safe and effective, and
• Work effectively with others providing you with care

Others may also need to use records about you to:

• Check the quality of care (such as clinical audit)
• Protect the health of the public
• Keep track of NHS spending
• Manage the health service
• Help investigate any concerns or complaints you or your family have about your health care
• Teach health workers and
• Help with research

Some information will be held centrally to be used for statistical purposes. In these instances, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.

We use anonymous information, wherever possible, but on occasions we may use personally confidential information for essential NHS purposes such as research and auditing. However, this information will only be used with your consent, unless the law requires us to pass on the information.

The legal part

You have a right to privacy under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations 2016. The practice needs your personal, sensitive and confidential data in order perform our statutory health duties, in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller in compliance with Article 6 (e) of the GDPR and for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services on the in compliance with Article 9, (h) of the GDPR.

You have the right to ask for a copy of all records about you.

• Your request should be made to the practice holding your information
• We are required to respond to you within one Month
• You will need to give adequate information (for example full name, address, date of birth NHS number etc.)

To Access your record contact

If you think anything is inaccurate or incorrect, please inform the practice as soon as possible. For other rights about the use of your information please see our website.

The practice data protection officer is  and is available via:

Michelle Wiles

Black Country ICB

Bcicb.dpo@nhs.net

07977946628

Please click here to view annual statement.

Are you aware that your personal medical information that you share with your GP or other healthcare professional is about to be extracted and stored on a computer outside of the control of this practice where the practice will have no say on who has access to that information?

There are changes occurring in how we protect the confidential and personal information that we record in your medical records. The changes make it a legal obligation for us to share your information (see below). The proposed benefits of sharing identifiable data are to help you plan and monitor effective patient services, especially where patients receive care from several different organisations.

What we record at our practice

Healthcare professionals in our practice record information about the care we provide.

The type of information that is recorded includes the following;

• Demographics, e.g. address, telephone number, e-mail, date of birth, gender, etc.
• What you tell us when you see us in consultations e.g. about your physical and psychological health and social circumstances.
• Diagnoses, investigations, treatments, referrals, family background.
• Social information e.g. housing status, alcohol, smoking data.
• Third party sources e.g. hospital letters, A&E attendances, relatives, carers, insurance companies, solicitors.

What we already share about you

We share different types of information about our patients. These include:

• Personal information about you and your illness, when needed for your direct care, e.g. referral to hospital consultants, district nurses, health visitors, midwives, counsellors, the summary care record.
• Patient identifiable information to public health, in order to arrange programs for childhood immunisations, communicable diseases, cervical smears and retinal screening.
• With explicit consent, personal information to other organisations outside the NHS e.g. insurance companies, benefits agencies.
• Limited information about you, if relevant, to protect you and others, e.g. to social services child protection investigations.
• Under certain acts of parliament to protect you and others e.g. court order.
• Summary information which is anonymised (can not identify you) e.g. quality and outcome frameworks (QoF), medical research and clinical audit.

It is also important to understand that currently a limited amount of patient information or data is used mostly at local level to help design health services or undertake clinical audit.

Some information is used at a national level. Information from lots of individual patients allows the NHS to build a picture of what is happening to the nation’s health. The majority of this information is anonymised before it leaves the healthcare professional, in other words no one can identify who the information relates to.

How we protect your personal information

Currently, your GP is responsible for protecting your information and to do this they comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). As part of the DPA, all healthcare professionals have an obligation to only share information on a need to know basis.

For further information on the DPA, please view the Data Protection Act 2018 page on the Gov.uk website.

So what is changing?

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 the Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) on behalf of NHS England (the body responsible for commissioning health services across England) will be able to extract personal and identifiable information about all patients in England.

The programme, called care.data, is administered by the HSCIC using software and services provided by a private sector company. Once your identifiable information has been taken from different health organisations (GP practice, hospitals, mental health trusts) it will then be linked together to produce a complete record about you. This information will be stored on national secure servers and will be managed by HSCIC.

Although access to information will be strictly controlled, the HSCIC is planning to share this information with other organisations both NHS and private. The HSCIC will decide what information they will share and who they then share this information with.

Your GP will not be able to object to this information being released to HSCIC and will no longer be able to protect your information under the DPA as stated above.

Effectively, where the HSCIC is concerned the health and social care act over rules the DPA with regard to disclosure of personal information.

What you need to do

• If you are happy for NHS England to direct the HSCIC to extract, store and manage/use your personal information then you need to do nothing as the information will be automatically taken from your GP’s computer systems.
• If you don’t wish your information to be extracted then you MUST complete the document below, which will block the uploading of your identifiable and personal information to the HSCIC.
• If you are happy for your information to be extracted and used by the HSCIC for anonymised reports but not shared by the HSCIC with other agencies or companies in identifiable format, you can ask your GP practice to add a code to your record which will alert the HSCIC not to use your information in this way.
• It should be emphasised that your access to health care and the care that you receive will not be affected by either decision.

Opting Out

If you wish to opt-out, please contact the practice using our online Contact the Practice form.