Your Practice and the GDPR

The Portchester Practice has ensured that it meets its obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in force on 25th May 2018, and in particular how the surgery processes personal data, including sensitive health records.

You can find out more about the GDPR here:

You can view our detailed privacy notices above

  • Our Data Protection Impact Assessment is here
  • Our Practice Privacy Notice is here
  • Our Right to Object policy is here
  • Our Right of Access (SAR) policy is here
  • Our Personal Data Breach policy is here
  • Our Data Protection Policy is here
  • Our General Data Protection policy is here
  • Our Freedom of Information policy is here

We ensure that patients of The Portchester Practice are made aware of their rights under the new legislation and that the surgery meets its responsibilities under the GDPR.

The Portchester Practice places privacy and data protection at the heart of all its processing.

You have the right to both:

  • Opt out of any of the data sharing schemes
  • Opt back into any of the data sharing schemes
    (that you may have already opted out of)

Do you know what information you have agreed to share about your health and how this may impact the information available to other health and care professionals if they are treating you somewhere other than your GP Practice?  More information is provided here

Your Practice and Primary Care Network

In the Fareham & Portchester area GPs Practices, Centre practice, Gudge Heath Lane Surgery, Portchester Medical Practice & Westlands Medical Centre, are working together to improve the care patients receive.  To provide effective and timely care this will mean some patient information will need to be shared between the practices of the primary care network.

Fareham and Portchester Primary Care Network QA.pdf

Patient Charter

We, at The Portchester Practice, employ a team-based approach to deliver the highest quality Clinical Care. Always demonstrating respect for you, your family, and caregivers, our primary goal is to be responsive to your needs and those of the local community.

Below, we outline the standards set within our practice, all designed to benefit our patients.

Our Responsibilities to You:

We will strive to treat you with courtesy, respect, and sensitivity in every interaction. Patients will always be treated as unique individuals and as partners in their healthcare journey, regardless of their ethnic background, religious and cultural beliefs, gender, social class, disability, or age.

Providing you with treatment and advice is our primary responsibility. Following a thorough discussion with you, we will offer the most suitable care administered by qualified professionals. No treatment or care will be provided without your fully informed consent. To safeguard your health, it is essential that you understand all the information provided. If you have any doubts, please do not hesitate to ask questions.

We will endeavour to ensure an adequate number of appointments of an appropriate nature are accessible to fulfil the requirements of our patients. We will provide appointments from 8am to 6:30pm, Monday to Friday, with appropriately trained clinicians from our multidisciplinary practice and primary care network team. We will maximize the variety of appointments available to the practice to optimally address the patient’s needs. This will encompass in-person, telephone, and video consultations. When suitable, we will communicate with patients using SMS services or email.

Maintaining the highest standards of medical practice is our constant aim. Our doctors and healthcare professionals uphold these standards through continuous professional development and will review your care during your visits to our practice.

Your Responsibilities to Us:

  • Treat all members of our staff with equal courtesy and understanding. Abusive or threatening behavior will not be tolerated and may result in removal from our patient list.
  • Punctuality is appreciated to keep our appointment schedule running smoothly. Latecomers may be asked to reschedule their appointments.
  • Home visits should only be requested when you are too unwell to come to the surgery. Ideally, please request a home visit before 10.30 am. Requests made after 10.30 am may be deferred to the following day after discussing the situation with the patient. Please note that home visits are intended exclusively for housebound patients.
  • If you are unable to attend your appointment, please notify us as soon as possible, ideally with at least 24 hours’ notice.
  • Please allow us two working days to process your repeat prescription requests.
  • Understand that emergencies can occasionally disrupt even the most well-planned systems.
  • Notify us promptly if you change your name, address, or telephone number. It is equally important to inform the hospital of your updated address if you are on a waiting list for a surgical procedure.
  • If you are referred for a hospital outpatient appointment, please attend as scheduled, or if you cannot, inform the hospital as soon as possible.
  • Keep in mind that test results may take some time to reach us. The practice will get in touch with you if any treatment or follow-up is necessary. Inquiries regarding tests ordered by the hospital should be directed to the hospital and not to our surgery.
  • A 15-minute appointment is intended for addressing one person’s one medical issue. If another family member needs to be seen or if you have multiple concerns, please schedule additional appointments.

If you have any suggestions or matters you wish to bring to our attention, you can submit a note at our reception or, alternatively, communicate via writing, email, or by speaking with any member of our staff, the manager, or a member of the Patient Participation Group (PPG).

Surgery GP Earnings

The average pay for GPs working in The Portchester Practice in the last financial year was £91,624 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 8 part time GPs and 1 long term locum GP who worked in the practice for six months or more.

“NHS England require that the net earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised by 31 March 2024 at the latest.  However, it should be noted that the prescribed method of 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 for any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make any comparisons with other practices.”

 

Summary Care Record

There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

Later on as the central NHS computer system develops, (known as the ‘Summary Care Record’ – SCR), other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.

As with all new systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. NHS Digital, the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System. Further information is available on the NHS digital website – NHS Digital

For existing patients it is different in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System unless you actively opt out.

Sharing your Medical Record

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients’ control and can be shared on a ‘need to know’ basis.