Practice Policies & Patient Information
Care Quality Commission
General Patient Information
Care Quality Commission

Care Quality Commission Certificate (pdf)
The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
Read the full Care Quality Commission inspection report for Shirland Medical.
Chaperones
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.
Complaints
We always try to provide the best service, but there may be times when you feel this has not happened or things could have been handled better. We hope you will allow us to look into and, if necessary, correct any problems that you have identified.
If you wish to make a complaint, please complete a complaint form which you can obtain from reception within 12 months of the incident and address it to the Practice Manager. We will acknowledge your letter within 3 working days and endeavour to respond within 28 days. During the Coronavirus pandemic this process is likely to take longer and we ask for your understanding of this.
A leaflet explaining our in house complaints procedure is available at reception.
Data Protection Registration Certificate
GP Average Earnings
All GP Practices are required to declare mean earnings (i.e. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.
The average pay for GPs working in the practice of Shirland Road Medical Centre in the last financial year was £54,307 after tax and National Insurance.
This is for 2 full time GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months.
Disclaimer: NHS England requires that the net earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised, and the required disclosure is shown above. However it should be noted that the prescribed method for calculating earnings is potentially misleading because it takes no account of how much time doctors spend working in the practice, and should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, or to make any comparison with any other practice.
Infection Control Statement
Infection Control Lead duties:
· Increase awareness of Infection Control issues amongst staff and patients
· Help motivate colleagues to improve practice
· Improve local implementation of Infection Control policies
· Ensure that practice based Infection Control audits are undertaken
· Assist in the education of colleagues
· Help identify any Infection Control problems within the practice and work to resolve these, where necessary in conjunction with the local Infection Control Team
· Act as a role model within the practice
· Disseminate key Infection Control messages to their colleagues within the practice
We take additional measures to ensure we maintain the highest standards:
· Encourage staff and patients to raise any issues or report any incidents relating to cleanliness and infection control. We can discuss these and identify improvements we can make to avoid any future problems.
· Carry out an annual infection control audit to make sure our infection control procedures are working.
· Significant events related to infection control are recorded, discussed and learned from
· Provide annual staff updates and training on cleanliness and infection control
· Review our policies and procedures to make sure they are adequate and meet national guidance.
· Maintain the premises and equipment to a high standard within the available financial resources and ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to reduce or remove all infection risk.
· Use washable or disposable materials for items such as couch rolls, modesty curtains, floor coverings, towels etc., and ensure that these are laundered, cleaned or changed frequently to minimise risk of infection.
· Make Alcohol Hand Rub Gel available throughout the building
Integrated Care Board
The Integrated Care Board in North West London (NW London) is called NHS NW London. It is the statutory NHS organisation responsible for developing a plan for meeting the health needs of the population, managing the NHS budget and arranging for the provision of health services in NW London.
Find out how the ICB improves health services, manages performance, quality and safety on NHS North West London website.
Missed Appointments Policy
10% of all appointments are missed. This affects your ability to get an appointment when you need it.
Please let us know if you are unable to make your appointment.
If you have received a text regarding a missed appointment, please view our letters if you have:
FIRST MISSED APPOINTMENT LETTER
According to our records, you have booked and then did not attend for an appointment
We understand that on occasions there may be genuine reasons why you are unable to attend an appointment. Please contact us to let us know if there were reasonable grounds for your non-attendance on this occasion.
As a practice, we have approximately 200 unattended appointments per month. We deal with non-attendance and lateness proactively so that our services are not strained. We normally send two notifications for missed or late appointments before further action is considered.
Wasted appointments may mean another patient who wants to see their GP or Practice Nurse is unable to due to limited availability. We respectfully request that if something arises, meaning you may miss or may be late for an appointment in the future, that you kindly let us know at least an hour in advance. Your appointment can then be given to someone else and a new one can be offered to you if needed.
If you have any queries regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact the surgery. Again, if you feel this communication has been issued to you in error and there was a specific reason why you were unable to attend, then please inform us. Thank you for your co-operation.
SECOND MISSED APPOINTMENT
You may recall we contacted you previously informing you of an appointment ou had missed. According to our records, it appears you have missed another appointment.
We understand that on occasions there may be genuine reasons why you are unable to attend an appointment. Please contact us to let us know if there were reasonable grounds for your non-attendance on this occasion. This is the second time we have had to contact you within the last 12 months regarding missed appointments. We feel there may be a breakdown in patient-practice relationship if a further appointment is missed. Please take this as your second notification, if you fail to attend for a further appointment we will be considering removing you from our practice list and you will need to find another practice to register with.
Removing a patient from our registered list is always a last resort, but we have to take the matter of wasted appointments seriously, as it is a strain on our resources and affects the level of service we are able to give to other patients.
May we take this opportunity to respectfully request again that if something arises, meaning you may miss or be late for an appointment in the future, please kindly let us know at least an hour in advance, so your appointment can be given to someone else and a new one can be offered to you if needed.
If you have any queries regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact the surgery. Again, if you feel this communication has been issued to you in error and there was a specific reason why you were unable to attend or were late, then please inform us. Thank you for your cooperation.
Mission and Vision Statement
Shirland Medical is a well established GP surgery committed to providing high quality general medical care and enhanced services to our practice population with a holistic approach.
Continue reading the Shirland Medical Mission and Vision Statement.
NHS eReferral Service
All referrals to secondary care are done via the NHS eReferral Service. You will be referred by your GPs and provided with a password and website address to book your hospital appointment, alternatively the practice secretary can help you with this.
Patient Charter
The doctors and staff are committed to providing a high quality medical service to our patients, and to treat all patients and visitors with respect and courtesy. We will endeavour to provide you with or direct you to such diagnostic, therapeutic and preventative services as will ensure the best outcome for your problems within the constraints of what is possible, reasonable and practicable.
We ask that patients and their families treat us with respect and courtesy. The health centre has a policy of removing any patient from our list who is verbally or physically abusive towards staff or other patients.
Patients Responsibilities
Practice Fair Processing and Privacy Notice
Please download the Practice Fair Processing and Privacy Notice.
Primary Care Network
Our federation is made up of over 40 practices based in West London. These are divided into five Primary Care Networks (PCNs). Our Practice falls under Inclusive PCN.
For further information please see NHS England Primary Care Networks.
Statement of Purpose
Toilet Access in Education Settings
Please see Policy Statement for Access to Toilet Facilities in Education Establishments (pdf), which requests this for all students and learners. This can be printed and shown to your child’s school or college.
Zero Tolerance to Violence Policy
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.
Continue reading our Zero Tolerance to Violence Policy.