The Accessible Information Standard aims to make sure that people who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss are given information they can easily read or understand.

Please inform practice staff if you have any communication or support needs.

Help us to make sure we get things right for you by recording your accessibility requirements and information needs, together with other details, for example:

• Do you need large print
• Access to a hearing loop
• Wheelchair access
• British Sign Language via Action for Hearing Loss interpreter
• E-mail communication
• Text message communication
• Information in any other format

Please note that sign language and a hearing loss interpreter are available for both face to face and over the telephone/video calls.

For more information on the accessible information Standard go to www.england.nhs.uk/accessibleinfo

Inspects GP practices and other primary medical services in England to check that they are meeting the national standards of quality and safety.

Complaints

We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

To pursue a complaint please contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. The Practice Manager may ask you to put this in writing so we can further investigate your complaint.

What happens if I prefer to complain directly to the commissioning organisation? 

If your complaint is about primary care services such as GPs, dentists, opticians or pharmacy services, you should contact Greater Manchester ICB.

Details of how to do this can be found at the following website, under the ‘Local area feedback and complaints’ section:

https://gmintegratedcare.org.uk/have-your-say/contact-us/

• From 1 July 2023 the way members of the public make a complaint about primary care services to the commissioner is changing. Rather than contacting NHS England, complaints will be made to directly to the local integrated care board (ICB).
• NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre will still deal with general enquiries from patients, such as ‘how do I get a GP or Dentist’. For such general enquiries, patients can still call 0300 311 22 33.

• Members of the public will still be able to make a complaint to the provider. This is NOT changing.

• Members of the public with ongoing complaints received on/after 1 July 2022 will receive a letter from NHS England informing them that the ICB is now handling their complaint with confirmation of their case handler.

• Members of the public with any ongoing complaints received before 1 July 2022 will receive a letter from NHS England informing them that their complaint is being retained by NHS England with confirmation of their case handler.
• Find out more about how to feedback or make a complaint about an NHS service

Local area feedback and complaints

For all other advice or complaints, please contact your local area feedback and complaints team:

Bolton

Governance and Safety,
Bolton – NHS GM,
Lever Chambers
27 Ashburner Street
Bolton, BL1 1SQ

Email:                                                            Call:     01204 462 022
[email protected]                                    01204 462 023

The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

• To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
• To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
• When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at a local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.

Information about the General Practitioners 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.

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

The average pay for GPs working in Heaton Medical Centre in the 2022/23 financial year was £75,222 before tax and National Insurance. This is for 8 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than 6 months.

We aim to provide a safe and clinically sound environment, where the immediate and urgent needs of individuals using the surgery is recognised, and suitably skilled staff are available to see and treat the users of this service. To ensure that we meet the needs and expectations of the patients we provide a culture of continuing learning and development.

We are an equal opportunities employer. We operate an equal opportunities policy and expect staff to have a commitment to equal opportunities policies in relation to employment and service delivery.

From 1^st April 2015, all patients registered at any GP practice are required to be allocated a named accountable GP.

What does ‘accountable’ mean?

 The named accountable GP is responsible for the co-ordination of all appropriate services required under the contract and ensure they are delivered to each patient where required.

However, this does not mean that they will be the only GP or clinician who will provide care to that patient.

These responsibilities will be carried out within the opening hours of the Practice and do not change the way you currently access care outside these hours.

Will GP practices write to patients to inform them of their named GP?

 No. However, we will inform patients of their named GP on request.

Can patients choose their own named GP?

 The Practice will allocate a named GP for each patient.

However, if a patient requests a different named GP, reasonable effort will be made to accommodate their preference.

Do patients have to see their named GP when they book an appointment?

 No. Patients can, and should, feel free to choose to see any GP or nurse in the practice in line with current arrangements. As all patients have an electronic medical record this ensures that all clinicians in the Practice have access to the most accurate and up to date information. If you request an urgent appointment, this will be with any of the doctors who have available appointments.

All patients registered at Heaton Medical Centre have been allocated a named accountable GP.

Please be aware that this does not affect your ability to make an appointment with any of the GPs in the practice of your choosing 

NHS Digital will collect data to support a wide variety of research and analysis to help run health and care services. In addition, the service will also help to support the planning and commissioning and health and care services, the development of health and care policy, public health monitoring and interventions and enable many different areas of research.

If you are happy for your information to be used in this way, you do not need to do anything.  If you wish to opt-out of this service, you will need to fill a form in and submit this online, or print this off, fill in the details and bring this to the Surgery. Children under 13 cannot opt-out online, and therefore will need to fill in a paper form.

• Download our opt-out form here
• Click here to find out How we use your information
• Click here to view our Privacy Notice
• Click here to view our Children Privacy Notice

Safeguarding is all about protecting the health, wellbeing, and human rights of individuals as well as enabling them to live safely and free from harm, abuse, and neglect.  It’s fundamental to high quality health services.

Safeguarding children and promoting their welfare includes:

• Protecting them from harm or things that are bad for their health or development.
• Making sure they grow up in surroundings that allow for safe and effective care.

Safeguarding adults includes:

• Protecting their rights to live in safety and free from abuse and neglect.
• People and organisations working together to reduce the risk of abuse or neglect and prevent it from happening.
• Making sure the wellbeing of local people is promoted, whilst taking their views, wishes, feelings, and beliefs into account.

Greater Manchester Integrated Care is required to demonstrate that we have appropriate systems in place for carrying out our duties set down in law in terms of safeguarding.  We are committed to working with others to ensure that provision is in place to respond when children or vulnerable adults are at risk or have been harmed.  More broadly, the ICB seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable in our community.

Home | Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (gmintegratedcare.org.uk)

For further information on safeguarding in Bolton, visit the website for:

Bolton Safeguarding Adult Board

Bolton Safeguarding Children Board

Do you know someone who could be at risk?

If you believe that a child or adult is suffering harm, or is likely to do so, you have a responsibility to notify the correct authority.

If you are concerned about an adult who may be at risk call Adult Social Care (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm)

Adult Social Care on 01204 337 000

Adult Social Care – Emergency Number on 01204 337777

If you are worried or have concerns that a child may be being abused or neglected then please take action. You can contact Bolton’s Integrated Front Door on 01204 331500 (during office hours only: 9.00am – 5.00pm)

If you need advice or guidance about Childrens Safeguarding in Bolton contact 01204 463390 [Answer Phone]

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. Connecting for Health (CfH), 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.

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.

For further information visit the Connecting for Health Website

If you choose to opt out of the scheme, then you will need to complete a form and bring it along to the surgery.

Download the opt out form >>>>

The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The Practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being attacked or abused. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time.  The staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

• Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
• Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
• Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
• Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

Removal from the practice list

A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

Removing other members of the household

In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.