BMA Scotland – Guide to information available through the model publication scheme for GP Practices

Craigvinean Surgery, Dunkeld

Guide to information available through the Scottish Information Commissioner’s Model Publication Scheme 2014

Index

Section 1Introduction

Section 2About Craigvinean Surgery, Dunkeld

Section 3Our functions and services

Section 4How we take decisions and what we have decided

Section 5What we spend and how we spend it

Section 6Accessing information under the scheme

Section 7Information that we may withhold

Section 8Our charging policy

Section 9Our copyright policy

Section 10Our records management and disposal policy

Section 11Feedback

Section 12Complaints

Section 13How to access information which is not available under this scheme

Section 14Classes of information

Section 1: Introduction

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 requires Scottish public authorities to produce and maintain a publication scheme. Authorities are under a legal obligation to:

  • Publish the classes of information they make routinely available
  • Tell the public how to access the information and what it might cost

Craigvinean Surgery, Dunkeld has adopted the Model Publication Scheme 2014 produced by the Scottish Information Commissioner. The scheme has the Commissioner’s approval until 31 May 2018.

You can see the model publication scheme on the Commissioner’s website at or by contacting us at the address provided below.

The purpose of this Guide to Information is to:

  • allow you to see what information is available (and what is not available) in relation to each class
  • state what charges may be applied
  • explain how you can find the information easily.
  • provide contact details for enquiries and to get help with accessing the information
  • explain how to request information we hold that has not been published.

Section 2: About Craigvinean Surgery, Dunkeld

General information

The National Health Service Scotland is the publicly funded healthcare service for Scotland. The provision of healthcare is the responsibility of 14 geographically based NHS boards and a number of Special Health Boards. Details of NHS Scotland’s organisation can be found at

.

NHS Boards contract with GP practices to provide primary care services to patients. The GP practice at Craigvinean Surgery is constituted under the National Health Services (Scotland) Act 1978 and is contracted by NHS Tayside health Board to provide primary medical services under GMS Regulations. Under this contract we provide primary medical services to patients on our practice list.

Who we are and how to contact us

Craigvinean Surgery, little Dunkeld, Dunkeld, Perthshire PH8 0AD

Tel 01350 727 269Fax 01350 728 555

For reasons of patient safety, this route should not be used as a way of contacting the surgery for patient medical services. Please telephone or call in person.

Organisational structure

GP Partners; Dr G Wright, Dr C Hewitt, Dr R Gunn & from September 2014, Dr C.Charles.

Practice Manager; L Foster

In total, we have 4 GPs, 2 practice nurses, 1 practice manager, 1 IT coordinator, 4 reception and administration staff, and cleaning staff. On occasion, and usually to accommodate essential Continuing Professional Development, we employ the services of locum GPs from the NHS Tayside Performer’s List. Our building also accommodates community health care staff including a pharmacist, district nurses, health visitors, podiatrist and others from time to time on a visiting basis for the convenience of local patients

The practice opening hours are 8.00h until 18.00h on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and 7.30h until 18.00h on Wednesday and Friday.

Out of hours healthcare

Outside these hours, emergency healthcare is provided through the NHS Tayside Out of Hours service, accessed through calling the normal surgery telephone number, or preferably by calling 111 directly. General healthcare information and advice is also available to patients at the website We receive and act on information about our patients who have had OOH contact by the next working day.

Concerns or complaintsor suggestions about the services we provide can be made directly and in the first instance to the practice by contacting the practice manager. Advice on our complaints procedure is also available by asking at the reception. For NHS healthcare matters not under the control of the practice,for example about experiences in hospital, complaints can be made to the NHS Tayside Health Board Complaints service at:
Complaints and Feedback Team Lead
Complaints and Feedback Team
Ninewells Hospital
Dundee
DD1 9SY
Freephone: 0800 027 5507
Email:

Constitution

This GP practice is constituted under the National Health Services (Scotland) Act 1978 and is contracted by NHS Tayside to provide primary medical services under GMS Regulations.

Section 3: Our functions and services

NHS Boards contract with GP practices to provide primary care services to a group of patients. Craigvinean Surgery holds a General Medical Services contract with NHS Tayside. Under this contract we provide primary medical services to patients that reside within our practice area. The practice area is as shown below on the map, with the broken line representing the practice boundaries.

GP contractors Drs Wright, Hewitt, Gunn and (from September 2014) Dr Charles holding the contract for services with the NHS Tayside health board are therefore responsible for fulfilling the obligations of the contract for patients, from within this area,who areregistered with us. The General Medical Services Regulations detail our responsibilities under our contract. See

The payment arrangements under our contract are contained in the GMS: Statement of Financial Entitlements (the current year’s SFE can be found on the NHS Scotland website,

This practice participates in the Quality and Outcomes Framework. Funding under the QOF is dependent on achievement against a variety of clinical and non-clinical indicators.

This practice aims to take account of NHS Quality and Improvement Scotland standards and guidance, Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines relevant to general practice, and Scottish Government Health Directorates service strategies and frameworks.

Under our contract of services with the NHS Tayside we are obliged to meet the requirements of the GMS contract and must provide information to support this to the NHS board. The practice is audited by Practitioners Services Division under Payment Verification processes which assess that payments made to practices are correct. PSD is responsible for providing assurance to NHS boards that the payments made on their behalf to GP practices are accurate, valid and evidenced. The work conducted under Payment Verification includes patient registration checks, documentary checks, trend analysis, and practice visits.

General practitioners have a duty of care to their patients and are registered with the General Medical Council and follow the standards and good medical practice guidelines laid down by the GMC, including the requirements set out in the GMC guidance Duties of a Doctor (

Under our contract withNHS Tayside, Craigvinean Surgery provides a range of services to our patients (sometimes with theinput of practice –based or visiting specialist NHS staff) including:

  • general primary medical services
  • child health surveillance
  • contraceptive services, including IUCD fitting and implants
  • maternity medical services
  • minor surgery services
  • minor surgery
  • skin clinic
  • immunisation services
  • palliative care enhanced service
  • extended hours services
  • speech therapy
  • dietetics
  • podiatry
  • baby clinic
  • psychiatric
  • counselling
  • chronic disease management
  • cervical cytology
  • travel clinic
  • district nurses
  • health visitors
  • advice on smoking cessation
  • alcohol screening and interventions
  • anti-coagulant monitoring
  • medicines reviews and management
  • temporary resident emergencies (for up to 3 months) for patients registered with practices elsewhere in the UK, or in countries with reciprocal healthcare arrangements in place

It is important to note that this range of services may be subject to change so that some may not always be available or others may be added. Accessing our services by our patients is done through making contact with the reception desk by telephone or calling in person to explain your needs. In many cases you will be required to make an initial appointment with a GP to assess the best route to other services.

Some services may involve information sharing with other agencies and the practice use of your personal health information is covered by a duty of confidentiality, and is regulated by the Data Protection Act.1998 which is the basis for our Data Protection Policy.
The Data Protection Act gives you a number of rights in relation to how your personal information is used, including a right to access information we hold about you.

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and adheres to a Code of Practice on protecting patient confidentiality.

Further information can be found at

Training and teaching

The practice is not a GP training practice but it does support final year medical students in their education.

Interpretation and language services

We are able to access NHS Tayside Board Interpreter Services which are available through Language Line Services (LLS) for non-English speaking patients attending NHS Tayside Services. Translation services are also available for deaf and blind patients.

Section 4: How we take decisions and what we have decided

How the practice is run

Decision making process

The decision making process is based on a structure which includes a range of clinical and multi-disciplinary meetings. The Partners take the leads in specific clinical areas.

Direction of the business and management of the practice is informed by these various meetings where a full range of staff views are sought but ultimate responsibility for decision taking and implementing programmes of change is made by the Partners. Decisions on matters with financial consequences are made through a consensus approach by the partners with the practice manager and external accountant involved in providing detailed information to assist. The practice manager is responsible for overseeing operational implementation of decisions agreed.

Dr Wright is the practice senior partner and takes the lead in the clinical areas of diabetes, gastro-intestinal conditions, and has experience and expertise in endoscopy.

Dr Hewitt takes a clinical lead in chronic kidney disease and women’s health matters, including provision of IUCD and implant services. She has specialist interest and expertise in emergency care, being a director and trainer of GPs on BASICS courses.

Dr Gunn has a specialist interest in paediatric medicine and is the lead practice tutor of medical students who come to the practice for monthly placements. He is also BASICS trained.

Dr Charles has specialist expertise in women’s health and contraceptive services.

The practice meeting structure and functions are as follows.

Strategic Planning Day occurs between the partners and practice manager at the weekend and is aimed at identifying areas for change and improvement over the course of the next year.

Partners’ Meetings are held weekly with the practice manager to ensure a coordinated timely approach to business matters is adopted.

Practice meetings are held monthly with all practice staff and fixed agenda headings designed to allow all practice roles to be represented in relation to current matters.

Practice Nurses meetings with the GPs and practice manager are held at varying intervals of 4-6 weeks to discuss largely clinical matters especially when relating to change

Practice Administration Team meetings are held monthly with the focus mainly directed towards patient services and communication and monitoring of these.

Contract meetings are held as required but then monthly from September until April. The purpose of these meetings are to use our systems data to monitor the practice progress towards the requirements of the GMS contract with the NHS Tayside health board. Monitoring of our progress in testing and treating patients with long term conditions is a major feature of these meetings. Resulting actions are targeted at interventions to ensure monitoring is done to the standards required. GPs, practice manager, IT coordinator, pharmacist, nurses attend routinely and administration staff may also attend.

Ad-hoc meetings may also be called to discuss any matter which either doesn’t fit into the normal pattern or is immediately pressing or requires more time than usually allocated to a meeting. Attendance would be as appropriate.

Patient communication and involvement in the practice

The practice does not have a formal ‘patient group’ preferring to listen and respond actively to any patient who has a comment, suggestion, compliment or complaint to make. We may however seek the current views of patient groups convened at events from time to time, such as those with diabetes, or disabilities, or an interest in supporting the surgery as a key community resource, like our local FRAME group. We participate in patient surveys from time to time to gauge the views on our services from the wider patient population and use the feedback from patients to inform our selected areas for improvement.

We provide information to our patients via our monthly practice newsletter which is available in hard copy at the reception desk and the waiting room, and is also published in the local freesheet newspaper, The Bridge, which is delivered to the majority of the homes within the practice area and is available at certain village outlets. The content is drawn from practice news such as staffing or service changes, current health promotion campaigns, Scottish Government Health Department letters eg on national screening or immunisation programmes, matters raised by patients which are of general interest, advice to patients from other public services on matters such as home safety, protection of vulnerable people, seasonal healthcare advice and information on practice performance etc. We are also open to suggestions from patients for inclusion.

Please see Section 14 – Classes of information for further details.

Section 5: What we spend and how we spend it

Craigvinean Surgery receives funding from our NHS sources to provide NHS services to patients. We do not charge patients for NHS services. Details of our NHS funding can be requested from the practice, or found from

This documentgives details of all NHS funding to Scottish GP practices.

Costs of running the practice

The costs of running the practice can be variable from year to year and would be typically within the range of 60+% to 70% of the practice income.

These expenditures include:

  • Rent and rates
  • Utilities – gas, telephone, electricity
  • Servicing, maintaining, cleaning and repair of the premises, including lift, intruder alarm, fire alarm, heating system, sewage collection pumps and drainage, electrician, plumber, builder work, windows cleaning, roof and rhones repair, gardening work, materials for clearing snow, salting and gritting in winter
  • Redecorating and carpet/floorcovering
  • Staff wages, NICs, and pensions
  • Medical consumables such as speculums, dressing packs, couch towel roll, gloves etc
  • Other consumables such as cleaning materials, hygiene supplies
  • Stationery and computer consumables
  • Medical measuring equipment
  • Office equipment
  • Miscellaneous other items

please see Section 14 – Classes of information for further details.

Section 6: Accessing information under this scheme

Information available under our guide to information will normally be available through the routes described below. Section 14 – Classes of Information provides more details on the information available under the scheme, along with additional guidance on how the information falling with each “class” may be accessed.

Online

Most information listed in our guide to information is available to download from our practice website

If you have any difficulty accessing information online please contact us by an alternative route.

By email

You can request the information you seek by email at craigvinean.tayside.nhs,net wherever possible. When requesting information from us, please provide a telephone number so we can telephone you to clarify details, if necessary.

By phone

Information can also be requested from us over the telephone. Please call 01350 727 269

to request information available under this scheme asking for the practice manager.

By post

All information under the guide will normally be available in paper copy form, but please consider the impact on the environment. Please address your request to:

Practice Manager, Craigvinean Surgery, Dunkeld, PH8 0AD

When writing to us to request information, please include your name and address, full details of the information or documents you would like to receive, and any fee payable (see Section 6: Our charging policy for further information on fees). Please also include a telephone number so we can telephone you to clarify any details, if necessary.

Advice and assistance

If you have any difficulty identifying the information you want to access, then please contact the practice by one of the methods listed above.

Section 7: Information that we may withhold

All information covered by our guide to information can either be accessed through our website, orwill be processed promptly and provided as soon as possible following our receipt of your request.

Our aim in maintaining this guide is to be as open as possible. You should note, however, that there may be circumstances where information will be withheld from one of the classes of information listed in Section 14 – Classes of Information. Information will only be withheld where permitted by The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).

Information may be withheld, for example, where its disclosure would breach the law of confidentiality or harm an organisation’s commercial interests. Information may also be withheld if it is another person’s personal information, and its release would breach data protection legislation.

Information would not be disclosed in the following examples:

  • Requests for information that is contained in patient medical records. However, you do have the right to request your own medical records, see Section 13 - How to access information which is not available under this scheme.
  • Requests for information relating to private income of practice partners or practice staff
  • Requests for financial information that would likely prejudice substantially the commercial interests of any person

Additionally, section 25 of FOISA provides an absolute exemption which allows our practice to refuse to deal with a request where the requested information is already reasonably obtainable elsewhere, even where a fee may be charged. Information provided in the publication scheme is considered reasonably obtainable.