Your Rights and Responsibilities 

Attending a busy GP Practice as a patient can be an anxious and worrying time for you. We aim to make your time here as short and as simple as possible and the following should help to explain what you, as a patient, can expect from our staff and what we, the staff, can expect from you.

Your Doctor’s Responsibilities

• Consider your needs and provide a professional and confidential service and work in partnership with you, your family, carers and representatives
• Consider what would most benefit your health and wellbeing and discuss any decision in a clear and transparent way.
• Treat you equally and with dignity and respect
• Encourage you to take part in decisions about your health and wellbeing by providing you with the information and support to do so
• Learn from any mistakes and ensure that, should any occur, we fully investigate. If harm has been caused, we will provide an appropriate explanation and apology.
• Offer you your named GP, or GPs, of choice where possible for continuity of care
• Listen to you and involve you in decision making regarding your treatment options
• Consider and respect your feedback

Your Responsibilities as a Patient

• Use our service responsibly and not expect immediate treatment for non-urgent/routine conditions
• Take personal responsibility for your own health
• Treat staff and other patients with respect and recognise that violence or the causing of nuisance or disturbance these premises could result in prosecution
• Recognise that abusive and violent behaviour could result in you being requested to register elsewhere
• Provide accurate information about your health, condition and status
• Keep to any appointments or cancel within a reasonable time to allow the appointment to be reused for another patient
• Follow the course of treatment to which you have agreed and talk to your clinician if you find this difficult
• Participate in important public health programmes such as vaccination
• Utilise the services of other professional practice staff as a GP is not necessarily the most appropriate clinician to see on all occasions
• Allow sufficient time for processing repeat prescription requests and not pressure staff to process unauthorised medication requests
• Keep us informed of any name, address and telephone number changes. 

Failure to meet these expectations may result in the practice requesting that you register elsewhere at another GP practice.