This organisation is committed to providing a safe, comfortable environment where patients and staff can be confident that best practice is being followed at all times and the safety of everyone is of paramount importance.

All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present for any consultation, examination or procedure where they feel one is required. The chaperone may be a family member or friend. On occasions you may prefer a formal chaperone to be present i.e. a trained member of staff.

Wherever possible we would ask you to make this request at the time of booking your appointment so that arrangements can be made and your appointment is not delayed in any way. Where this is not possible, we will endeavour to provide a formal chaperone at the time of request. However, it may be necessary to re-schedule your appointment.

Your healthcare professional may also require a chaperone to be present for certain consultations in accordance with our Chaperone Policy.

If you would like to see a copy of our Chaperone Policy or have any questions or comments regarding this, please contact the Practice Manager.

Our Practice Privacy Notices explain what information we collect about you, how we store this information, how long we retain it and with whom and for which legal purpose we may share it, the documents can be downloaded here:

Practice Privacy Notice

As part of a mandatory, national programme each GP Practice will have to make a summary care record for each patient (unless the patient has already opted out).

If you wish to opt out download and complete the opt out form and return to the Practice (see below).

NHS Summary Care Record on the NHS Digital website.

Your GP practice holds copies of your patient health record electronically and in paper format. Both contain the healthcare information about you that your GP needs including your medical history, medications, allergies, immunisations and vaccinations.

If you have previously registered with a different GP in England, upon registering at this practice your electronic health record will, where possible, be transferred automatically from your previous practice through the use of an NHS system called GP2GP.

Transferring Your Electronic Health Record Information Leaflet

From time to time, where it is useful in the treatment or management of a particular condition (most usually relating to skin disease), the treating GP may wish to take a photograph and append this to your medical record. This allows the medical team to monitor disease progression and response to treatment. The image may be passed as part of a secondary care (hospital) referral if the treatment the Surgery has given has not been successful or there is diagnostic uncertainty or concern. Video recordings are not used in this Surgery.

The use of photographs in the Surgery is subject to these safeguards:

1. Consent will be obtained before any photograph is taken. This is not usually written/signed consent and may take the form of discussion and agreement, so called implied consent. Patients will never be put under pressure to have an image taken and can refuse consent without affecting treatment. The image should be regarded as an adjunct to the written clinical records
2. Images will be uploaded directly to the clinical computer system Emis Web and then deleted or wiped from the camera.
3. Emis Web is a secure and encrypted storage facility of all medical information and is backed up regularly to prevent data loss
4. Smartphones are never used to take images.
5. Other than as part of an agreed secondary care referral, images will never be taken off site. In particular, for the avoidance of doubt, images are never shared on any social media site, such as Facebook or YouTube.
6. As with the rest of their medical records, patient are able to request to review the images held by the Surgery.
7. The Surgery is involved in teaching medical students from the Royal Free and University College Hospital Medical Schools. From time to time, some images taken may form part of this teaching. In these cases, all images are fully anonymised with no patient identifiable information. Where a patient does not wish that an image taken as part of their treatment should be used in this way, they are asked to communicate this preference to the Surgery. We will then take care to follow this instruction carefully.
8. Safeguarding. Where there are adults who lack capacity to give consent, the GP will obtain consent from someone who has legal authority to make the decision on the patient’s behalf before taking the image. Those under 16 who have the capacity and understanding to give consent for a photograph may do so. Where a child or young person is not able to understand the nature, purpose and possible consequences of the photograph, the GP will obtain consent from a person with parental responsibility.

Information available from Westbury Medical Centre under the Freedom of Information Act model publication scheme can be obtained from our Practice Manager.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 obliges the practice to produce a Practice Booklet. A Practice Booklet is a guide to the services the practice intends to routinely make available. This booklet is available from reception.