Download the SARS Request Form.

Disclaimer: NHS England require that the new earnings of doctors engaged in the practice is publicised, and the required disclosure us shown below. 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, nor to make any comparison with any other practice.

The average pay for GPs working in the Stapenhill Medical Centre in the last financial year was £88,350 before tax and national insurance.  This is for 2 full time GPs and 4 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months.

Our surgery is a training practice for GP’s we are grateful if patients are willing to help in their training.

You may be offered an appointment with the “GP registrar” who will be an experienced and fully trained doctor who has previously worked in hospital settings and is now learning to become a GP.

Your consultation may be video recorded for training purposes, patient consent will be requested and you are able to see the doctor without being recorded.

Most problems can be sorted out quickly and easily, often at the time they arise with the person concerned and this should be the approach you try first.

Where you are not able to resolve your complaint in this way and wish to make a formal complaint you should do so, in writing as soon as possible after the event and ideally within a few days, as this helps us to establish what happened more easily. In any event, this should be:

Within 12 months of the incident,

or within 12 months of you discovering that you giving as much detail as you can.

If you are a registered patient you can complain about your own care. You are unable to complain about someone else’s treatment without their written authority. See the separate section in this leaflet.

We are able to provide you with a separate complaints form to register your complaint and this includes a third-party authority form to enable a complaint to be made by someone else. Please download the form attached or ask at reception for this. You can provide this in your own format providing this covers all the necessary aspects. We would need to see ID of our patient giving consent.

What we do next

We look to resolve complaints as soon as practically possible.

We will acknowledge receipt within 5 working days, and aim to have looked into the matter within 28 working days of the date it was received. If the matter is likely to take longer than this we will let you know, and keep you informed as the investigation progresses.

When looking into a complaint we attempt to see what happened and why, to see if there is something we can learn from this, and make it possible for you to discuss the issue with those involved if you would like to do so.

When the investigations are complete your complaint will be determined and a final written response sent to you.

Patient Complaint Form

Our Aims

The team at Stapenhill Medical Centre aim to offer you the best possible medical care, and below we set out some of the ways that we try to help you and in which you can help us. We hope that you will understand that it is difficult given the varying patterns of illness and demands on our service to offer a “perfect” service at all times, but we will certainly do our best to help you.

1. We will respect your privacy and confidentiality at all times.
2. We will treat you in a courteous and polite manner, both on the telephone and in person.
3. We will treat you on the basis of your clinical needs, offering the treatment which you require, based on medical grounds regardless of other factors.
4. We will offer you all the recommended services such as Health Checks, Ante natal care, Cervical screening etc. as per national and local guidelines.
5. We will deal with your problem quickly and appropriately. This may be with phone call advice, an urgent same-day appointment at the Surgery, or a home visit when absolutely necessary.
6. We aim to provide non urgent appointments within 2 to 3 working days and to see urgent problems on the day on which they arise. Please note you may be asked to explain to the Receptionists or Doctor why you consider your problem to be urgent so that we can decide on how best to help you promptly.
7. We will try not to keep you waiting when you attend the Surgery and will attempt to make the Reception area and waiting room a comfortable and welcoming place, treating you with courtesy and respect at all times.
8. We will arrange repeat prescriptions as previously agreed with the Doctors within 2 working days of receipt of the computer slip. Handwritten or verbal requests will not normally be accepted.
9. We will attempt to process private work such as Insurance Medicals. Mortgage Insurance forms etc as quickly as possible. However our medical work must take priority. Please note there may be a charge for some aspects of this private work and you will be notified of any fee which will be incurred in advance.
10. We would be pleased to accept suggestions and constructive criticism. If you have any legitimate worries or concerns, please communicate them to the Doctors or to the Practice Manager and we undertake to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 7 days and to deal with the matter fully as soon as possible.

Our Expectations – what we would like you to do

We are here to help you and would hope to have your co-operation and support to enable things to run as smoothly as possible. You can help us by:

1. Being polite and respectful to the Practice staff.
2. Being patient when using the telephone, particularly at busy times, such as Monday mornings. Try to avoid such busy times when possible.
3. Use the computer printouts for repeat prescriptions and give at least 2 working days’ notice before you need the drugs.
4. Telephone before 10.00am for a home visit so that the Doctors can plan the home visits after Surgery.
5. Come to the Surgery by appointment rather than requesting home visits which are time consuming and during which we do not have the facilities available at the Surgery.
6. The Doctor can see up to 5 patients in the Surgery in the time it takes to make one home visit.
7. Please try to keep to your appointment time and do not bring along children or relatives to the appointment booked in one person’s name without prior arrangement. If you do this the Doctor will not have the other person’s notes and will not have set aside the time to deal with several problems during one consultation.
8. Please attend your appointments on time and be aware if you are over 5 minutes late for your appointment you will be asked to rebook.
9. Please note that each appointment with the Doctor should last approximately 7 minutes. If you have a very complex problem or several separate problems, it would be helpful if you could make a longer appointment or accept that you may have to come back to discuss some of your problems at greater length on a separate appointment.
10. If you cannot attend your appointment, please let us know so that the slot can be offered to someone else.
11. For your safety, and to ensure you are directed to the best person to help you, our reception team have been trained to ask for specific information. All our receptionists are bound by strict confidently rules. Please help us to help you.

Please try to be patient with the Receptionists and give them the information they need in order to do their job properly.

Remember that the Receptionists are the agents of the Doctors and you should treat them with the same courtesy and respect that we would expect you to treat the clinical staff in the Practice.

We reserve the right to remove patients from our list with whom the medical relationship has broken down irretrievably or are rude to the staff.

Our Patient Participation Group Needs You!

Our Patient Participation Group (PPG) is a group of individual like-minded people who meet every 2 – 3 months along with the staff at the surgery. Their aim is to be the voice of our patients and, with the help of the GPs and staff, to promote the health and wellbeing of our patient population. The group also discusses issues related to the Practice regarding the continuous improvement of services and quality of care for our patients.

We would welcome anyone interested in becoming a member of our group and to share our enthusiasm to make the most of our ideas and skills for the benefit of everyone.  If you would like to join us, please contact the surgery on 01283 565200 and leave your details with the reception team, or e-mail [email protected].

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on 25^th May 2018. This is a new regulation about the protection of any confidential and sensitive information.

Please see our Practice Privacy Notice 2024.

If your personal details have changed such as your name, address or contact telephone number, it is important to let the surgery know as soon as possible.

You can do this by filling in a form at reception, emailing the surgery at [email protected] or completing the attached form.

The Practice takes it very seriously if a member of staff or one of the doctors or nursing team is treated in an abusive or violent way.

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. All our staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. They would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it violent or abusive, will not be tolerated and may result in you being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

• Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
• Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
• Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
• Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently

We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.

Removal from the practice list

A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. When trust has irretrievably broken down, it is in the patient’s interest, just as much as that of the practice, that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is on immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

Removing other members of the household

In rare cases, however, because of the possible need to visit patients at home it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household. The prospect of visiting patients where a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice by virtue of their unacceptable behaviour resides, or being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it too difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is particularly likely where the patient has been removed because of violence or threatening behaviour and keeping the other family members could put doctors or their staff at risk.