Patient’s Charter

Our responsibilities to you:

The Nantwich Clinic always aims to provide the best possible standard of healthcare for you in a clean and safe environment.

You will be treated as individuals and partners in your healthcare, given courtesy and respect regardless of background, ethnicity, religious belief, gender (including gender identity), disability, personal situation, or the nature of your health problem.

We are committed to equality and diversity in the way we respond and meet your needs.

We pledge to use your feedback to help us to develop our training and systems in order to improve our services in the future.

We ensure all communication with us is honest, clear, helpful and are responded to as quickly as possible.

Your responsibilities to us:

Help us to help you:

• Please let us know if you change your name, address or telephone number.
• Please do everything you can to keep appointments.
• If you cannot keep your appointment inform us with as much notice as possible.
• Please ask for home visits only when too ill or immobile to visit the clinic.

We ask that you treat the practitioners and clinic staff with courtesy and respect. Abusive or threatening behaviour will not be tolerated.

Remember, you are responsible for your own and the health of your children. We will give you our professional help and advice. Please act upon it.

Waiting time: We run an appointment system at the clinic. You will be given a time at which the podiatrist hopes to be able to see you. Our aim is that you are seen at that time, occasionally a patient may require more time – we ask for your patience at these times.

Access: You will have access to a practitioners rapidly in the case of an emergency. We will arrange a home visit as appropriate for those who are too ill or infirm to be brought to the clinic. We will try to offer all patients access to a practitioners within 48 hours although it will not always be possible to offer an appointment with the podiatrist of your choice.

Telephone: We will try to answer the telephone promptly and ensure that there are sufficient staff members available to do this.

Complaints and Suggestions: We shall give you a full and prompt reply to any complaints you make about the service we provide and try and change the way we work if this would improve care or standards to you and others. In the event of a complaint, patients have access to the Practice´s Complaints´ Procedure. This can be accessed via our Clinic manager. Suggestions on how our service may be improved are welcomed and may be sent via the form on the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website.

Health promotion: The practice will offer patients advice and information on steps they can take to promote good health and avoid illness, and self-help which can be undertaken without reference to a practitioner.

Medical records: Information contained in your health records is kept confidential at all times and only disclosed to others for purposes related to your health care (except when you have given permission).

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you are normally entitled to access your clinical records or any other personal information held about you. For this, please contact the reception staff.

How your medical records are used to help you: Your records are important to help ensure that you receive the best possible care from us.

Your records are used in the following ways to guide and administer the care you receive:

• to ensure that your practitioner has accurate and up to date information to assess your health and decide what care you need when you visit in the future.
• to ensure that there is a good basis for looking back and checking on the type and quality of care you have received
• to ensure that your concerns can be properly investigated if you need to complain

Whilst always preserving your confidentiality, your records can also help us to help you by:

assisting with health research. (If you need to be personally involved with the research, you will be contacted to see if you are willing to participate. You will not be identified without your agreement).