INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL (IPC)

ANNUAL STATEMENT 2023-2024

GP LEAD – DR KATIE SPENSLEY

IPC LEAD FOR PRACTICE – HELEN SHAW PRACTICE NURSE

PREMISE LEAD – KATY EDWARDS (PRACTICE MANAGER)

It is a requirement of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance that the Infection Prevention and Control Lead, produces an annual statement with regard to compliance with good practice on infection prevention and control and makes it available for anyone who wishes to see it, including patients and regulatory authorities.

As best practice, the Annual Statement should be published on the Practice website.

This annual statement will be generated every June/July and will summarise;

• Any infection transmission incidents and any action (these will be reported in accordance with our significant event procedure)
• Details of IPC audits undertaken and actions undertaken
• Details of staff training
• Any review and update of policies, procedures and guidelines

INFECTION TRANSMISSION INCIDENTS (SIGNIFICANT EVENTS)

Significant events (which may involve examples of good practice as well as challenging events) are investigated in detail to see what can be learnt and to indicate changes that might lead to future improvements.

There were no significant events relating to IPC in the previous 12 months.

INFECTION PREVENTION AUDITS

All staff are aware of the importance of hand hygiene in reducing healthcare associated infections, annual audit of hand hygiene is in progress.

An aseptic technique was performed in July with all clinicians involved in this procedure with excellent results.

An infection Prevention Control Annual Audit was also carried out in July.

A Pre-acceptance waste audit was carried out by Sister Helen Shaw in October 2023 for Anenta Waste Management Service.

RISK ASSESSMENTS

Risk assessments are carried out so that best practice can be established and then followed. In the last year the following risk assessment were carried out/reviewed.

Legionella (Water) Risk Assessment

TSS Facilities Ltd, carried out legionella risk assessment every 2 years and perform a legionella test twice a year. Julie Taylor (deputy practice manager) monitors the water temperature monthy

Cleaning specifications, frequencies and cleanliness: We work with our cleaners to ensure that the surgery is kept as clean as possible. Monthly assessments of cleaning processes are conducted with our cleaning contractors to identify areas for improvement

IPC ADVICE TO PATIENTS

All eligible patients have been invited for Flu vaccine (2023-24)

Parents/Guardians are sent regular invites/reminders for childhood immunisations.

There are posters in the surgery and information on the surgery website regarding current vaccination programmes.

In additional the nurses have opportunistically offered MMR, Shingles and Pneumonia to eligible patients during routine appointments.

STAFF TRAINING

All clinical staff receive annual training in infection control and prevention.

All non-clinical staff receive 3 yearly training in infection control and prevention.

POLICIES

All infection Prevention and Control related policies are in date for this year.

Policies relating to infection Prevention and Control are available to all staff and are reviewed/amended on an ongoing basis as current advice, guidance and legislation changes.

 

25/07/2024

HS

Sharing Your Medical Record

Increasingly, patient medical data is shared e.g. between GP surgeries and District Nursing, in order to give clinicians access to the most up to date information when attending patients.

The systems we operate require that any sharing of medical information is consented to by patients beforehand. Patients must consent to sharing of the data held by a health provider out to other health providers and must also consent to which of the other providers can access their data.

e.g. it may be necessary to share data held in GP practices with district nurses but the local podiatry department would not need to see it to undertake their work. In this case, patients would allow the surgery to share their data, they would allow the district nurses to access it but they would not allow access by the podiatry department. In this way access to patient data is under patients’ control and can be shared on a ‘need to know’ basis.

There is a new Central NHS Computer System called the Summary Care Record (SCR). The Summary Care Record is meant to help emergency doctors and nurses help you when you contact them when the surgery is closed. Initially, it will contain just your medications and allergies.

Later on as the central NHS computer system develops, (known as the ‘Summary Care Record’ – SCR), other staff who work in the NHS will be able to access it along with information from hospitals, out of hours services, and specialists letters that may be added as well.

Your information will be extracted from practices such as ours and held on central NHS databases.

As with all new systems there are pros and cons to think about. When you speak to an emergency doctor you might overlook something that is important and if they have access to your medical record it might avoid mistakes or problems, although even then, you should be asked to give your consent each time a member of NHS Staff wishes to access your record, unless you are medically unable to do so.

On the other hand, you may have strong views about sharing your personal information and wish to keep your information at the level of this practice. Connecting for Health (CfH), the government agency responsible for the Summary Care Record have agreed with doctors’ leaders that new patients registering with this practice should be able to decide whether or not their information is uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System.

For existing patients it is different in that it is assumed that you want your record uploaded to the Central NHS Computer System unless you actively opt out.

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 our 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.

Our staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint. However, rude or aggressive behaviour, be it intimidating, 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 insulting language, 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.

Patients should be mindful that our staff are following the rules, regulations and guidance as dictated by NHS England and the Management of the Practice. It is not in their power to change or alter these.

Removal from the practice list

A good patient-doctor relationship, based on mutual respect and trust, is the cornerstone of good patient care. If any of the behaviours listed above are reported by a member of staff, a review will be held internally and a decision made if the patient should receive a warning letter.

If and 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.

Zero Tolerance Policy.pdf

Patients can expect to be treated with dignity and respect and will not be discriminated against on any grounds including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

There are two types of Opt-out you can make.

Type 1 Opt-out which is handled by the Surgery and prevents information being shared outside of the Surgery for purposes other than direct care.

Please download and complete the Type 1 Opt-out form and hand into the Surgery, or attach it via email to wsxccg.lindfield.reception@nhs.net

National Data Opt-out allows patients to opt-out of their confidential patient information being used for research and planning.

 NHS National Data Opt-out

Type+1+Opt-out+form (1).pdf

There are many good reasons why insurance companies may request a copy of your medical records or a Doctor’s report. For example, you may be making a claim under your medical insurance policy. In this instance, the insurance company is entitled to request access to relevant medical information to allow them to process your claim.

Lindfield Medical Centre takes the processing of your data very seriously and so we will only process data when we can be certain that there is a lawful basis for doing so.

There have been reported cases where insurance companies (or other 3rd parties) have requested information using a Data Subject Access Request and have asked for a copy of all of a patient’s medical records. In such cases, they will have the patient’s consent to do so, but we have found instances where patients have not been fully aware of the extent of the information that will be released.

Therefore, when we receive such a request, we will always contact you, verify your identity and confirm that you are fully aware of the extent of the request.

The British Medical Association has questioned whether the law allows insurance companies to use Data Subject Access Requests to obtain confidential and sensitive personal data. The General Data Protection Regulation states that only data which is sufficient for the purpose for which it is required should be disclosed and sensitive personal data which is not relevant or excessive in relation to this purpose should not be disclosed.  

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has recently written to the insurance industry to confirm that they consider the use of Data Subject Access rights in this way is inappropriate and an abuse of that right to access medical records. As the guardian of your medical record we are responsible for ensuring only necessary and relevant information held on your record is shared with an insurance company, however we also have a duty to comply with a Data Subject Access Request made by you as a patient and do not want to cause any delays to your application.  

We feel that contacting you to discuss the request is the best way to ensure that we meet all of our lawful obligations without causing any unnecessary delay.

GP Privacy Notice current 2023