In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice manager. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so

If you need to have a personal examination and would prefer to have a chaperone with you (usually our Practice Nurse or someone you bring with you), then please ask when you book. It is our policy to always ask you if you wish to have a chaperone.

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We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

To pursue a complaint please contact the practice manager who will deal with your concerns appropriately. Further written information is available regarding the complaints procedure from reception.

Complaints

Practice Complaints Procedure
Patient feedback is important to us as it helps us to improve the service we provide to patients. We take patient complaints seriously and will attempt to address your concerns to your satisfaction.

How do I make a complaint?
If you wish to complain please contact the Practice Manager Charlotte Hubbard either in person, by phone or in writing:

Tel: 0115 925 4566

Address: The Oaks Medical Centre, 20 Villa Street, Beeston, Nottingham, NG9 2NY

Online: Email NNICB-NN.OaksMedicalCentre@nhs.net

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, the practice needs to know that you have their permission to do so.

What Happens Next?
The complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days. The practice will respond, after investigation, within the timeframe specified to you at the acknowledgement stage of the process. Some complaints may take longer to address but you will be informed of a response time. If this cannot be met, the practice will keep you informed.

Please be assured making a complaint will not adversely affect your ongoing healthcare at the practice. We will deal with you fairly, compassionately and will endeavour to resolve the situation to a satisfactory conclusion.

Wherever possible, we aim to learn from complaints and take action to avoid similar occurrences.

How do I complain to someone Independent?
GP Practices would prefer to have the opportunity to answer complaints ourselves in the first instance. However, you may pass your complaint directly to:

Patient Experience Team
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board
Sir John Robinson House
Sir John Robinson Way
Arnold
Nottingham
NG5 6DA

Tel: 0115 8839570

Email: nnicb-nn.patientexperience@nhs.net

If you would like further information please follow the link to the ICB website: Patient Experience and Complaints – NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB

The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

• To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
• To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
• When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.

Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.

Please note all waiting lists are out of the control of your GP.  A ‘letter’ from your GP will not expedite you being seen as all appointments are triaged by the hospital. Please be aware that all requests for letters to expedite hospital appointments. Our secretary team can inform you of the expected wait time for the speciality you have been referred to. If your condition has significantly changed since you were initially referred please contact our secretary team and inform them what has changed.

Information about the General Practitioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.

“The average pay for GPs working in the The Oaks Medical Centre in the last financial year was £69,514 before tax and national insurance.  This is for 2 full time GPs and 7 part time GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months

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, it should not be used to form any judgement about GP earnings, nor to make a comparison with any other practice.

In view of the fact that there are few hard and fast guidelines in place we must issue a disclaimer against any actions which may or may not be taken with regard to the publication of this information.”

Opioid Treatment for Non-Cancer Pain
Opioids are a group of strong painkillers and include codeine, tramadol, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, buprenorphine and methadone.

· There is evidence to suggest that opioids are very good painkillers when used for cancer pain, pain at the end of life or if used short term (for days to a few weeks) for some types of acute (i.e. recent onset) pain.

· Recent evidence has shown that opioids are poorly effective for long-term or chronic pain, which means pain that you have suffered for than 3 months.

As a result, opioid medication has been removed from a number of the guidelines that GPs use when treating chronic pain. For a small proportion of patients, opioids may be successfully used as part of a wider plan including non-medication treatments and self-management. If this is the case, best results are achieved when the opioids are used intermittently and at the lowest possible dose.

· When opioids are used, it is important to understand that the aim is not complete pain relief but rather reducing pain sufficiently to engage in self-management.

· The potential harms of opioid treatment include drowsiness (and in worst case scenario’s it can slow or stop your breathing resulting in death), nausea, constipation, effects on hormones, effects on the immune system, the potential for the drugs to worsen pain and the potential for problematic drug use and addiction.

· If the pain remains severe despite opioid treatment, it means that it is not working and should be stopped, even if no other treatment is available, as the risks outweigh the benefits.

The Oaks Medical Centre has a policy on prescribing of opiate medications as follows:

· All new opioids will be issued as acute prescriptions until all appropriate reviews are completed.

· All patients will need a review after 4 weeks of initiation of an opioid prescription; pain assessed, and a decision made as to the effectiveness of the drug.

· If opioids are ineffective, they will be stopped, even if no alternative is available.

· Where patients have been stabilised on an opioid which has been shown to be effective, this may be added to the patient’s repeat medication at the prescriber’s discretion.

· Patients on long-term opioids will be reviewed every 6 months to discuss slowly weaning off their opioid medication. Treatment will only be continued where there is clear on-going evidence of benefit.

· All opioids will be issued on prescriptions with a maximum duration of 1 month and we will not issue your prescription before it is due.

· All opioid prescriptions will include full directions wherever possible

· Where opioids are initiated by an external provider, the Practice will only take over prescribing once a written request has been received. Please be aware that if you are a new patient and your previous GP prescribed a medication such as an opioid with dependency forming potential, our prescriber’s will discuss with you if they feel that previous prescriptions were inappropriate and they will no longer continue to prescribe it for you.

Expectations of our patient’s prescribed opioid medication:

– You will not request your prescription early
– Your prescription will not be reissued if you misplace / lose your prescription
– You will not divert your prescribed medications to be used by anyone other than yourself
– Patients are reminded that we have a zero-tolerance policy on issues relating to staff verbal or physical abuse. We will not tolerate abusive demands for opioid medications.

Any threats to our staff will result in transfer of your care and you will be required to agree to the above before our clinical prescriber’s will issue you a prescription for an opioid medication.

Thank you for your understanding and co-operation with our policy.

Please see privacy notice below

GDPR Privacy Notice v3.6 July 2025 Oaks

The following details how The Oaks Medical Centre will respond to requests for ‘shared care’ agreements within the NHS and private sectors, and how we will respond to requests for care after patients have sought care within the private sector.

Shared care agreements are made between a consultant or their clinical team (hereafter referred to as ‘providers’) and primary care teams to allow the prescribing and monitoring of certain medications to be undertaken in primary care, whilst the consultant or their team retains overall oversight of the patient’s care. Generally, these patients will be reviewed by the specialist team on at least an annual basis, and the specialist remain accessible if problems arise that require further input.

Examples of medications that are only prescribed by The Oaks Medical Centre with shared care agreements in place include, but are not limited to:

• ADHD medications including Dexamfetamine, Lisdexamfetamine, Methylphenidate, and Atomoxetine
• Certain cardiovascular medications including Amiodarone and Dronedarone
• Growth hormones
• Testosterone for children for hypogonadism and constitutional delay in growth and puberty
• Certain Rheumatology medications/immunosuppressants including Methotrexate, Azathioprine, Hydroxychloroquine, Mercaptopurine, Ciclosporin, Leflunomide, Sulfasalazine
• Certain neurology medications including Riluzole, Apomorphine, and Valproate (in women of childbearing age)
• Phosphate binders
• Masculinising/feminising hormones as part of treatment for gender incongruence

The Oaks Medical Centre will generally enter into shared care agreements with specialist NHS clinics where it is appropriate and safe to do so.

The Oaks Medical Centre will not enter into shared care agreements with private providers. Where patients have sought care in the private sector and are being prescribed a medication that is usually prescribed as part of a shared care agreement, all prescriptions for this must continue to be written by their private provider.

The Oaks Medical Centre will not undertake any monitoring required as part of a prescription that would usually fall under shared care being supplied by a private provider. The responsibility for arranging monitoring such as this lies with the private provider. This may include, but is not limited to:

• Requests for physical health monitoring such as height/weight/pulse/blood pressure/blood tests/ECGs
• Requests for monitoring the effects of any prescription being supplied.

In situations such as the above and assuming it is clinically appropriate to do so, The Oaks Medical Centre are happy to place referrals to the relevant NHS service, such that an NHS shared care agreement can be put in place. Until patients are seen by the NHS clinic in question, all prescriptions will need to be obtained through their private provider.

Where patients have been referred through the NHS via ‘right to choose’, they may be seen by a private clinic as an NHS patient, rather than being seen directly in an NHS clinic. In these circumstances, The Oaks Medical Centre will consider accepting requests for shared care, however the particulars of the agreement must be at least equivalent to that offered by the same NHS service (with particular emphasis on frequency of specialist review, access to the specialist for advice when needed, when prescribing responsibility is to be returned to the specialist).

Patients who register with The Oaks Medical Centre who were already being prescribed shared care medications by their previous GP, or from a clinician abroad are required to have a valid NHS shared care agreement already in place, or an equivalent shared care agreement in place via a right to choose provider that they see as an NHS patient. If this is not the case, the patient will need to seek supply of the medication in the private sector until such time as they can be seen in the relevant NHS clinic to have an NHS shared care agreement placed.

Many shared care agreements require patients to attend for regular monitoring. This usually takes the form of blood tests/blood pressure/height/weight/pulse checks and is essential to ensure ongoing prescriptions of the medication in question are safe and appropriate. The Oaks Medical Centre will send invitations for patients to attend for the relevant monitoring when it is due, and it the patient’s responsibility to attend for this when requested to do so.

The Oaks Medical Centre will send three invitations in total for patients to attend for the required monitoring. If these invitations are not responded to, The Oaks Medical Centre will take action to reduce the amount of medication provided with each prescription (usually a single week’s supply at a time). If the required monitoring is still not undertaken, The Oaks Medical Centre may stop providing further prescriptions, and may void the shared care agreement. This may result in no further prescriptions being provided until such time as they are seen and restarted on the medication by their specialist team.

When a patient has been prescribed a medication via a shared care agreement, but has stopped taking it for a prolonged period of time, The Oaks Medical Centre may consider the shared care agreement void and pass responsibility for further prescriptions back to the specialist team. In this situation, we would decline to continue prescribing the relevant medication until the patient has been seen again by the specialist, the medication re-started and the patient re-stabilised, and we agree to take on prescribing again. ‘Prolonged period  of time’ is generally taken to be three months, but may vary at our discretion depending on the precise clinical situation.

In other cases where patients seek care in the private sector outside of the conditions/medications relating to shared care as discussed above, we may consider acting on the advice of a private clinic to prescribe medication/request investigations/make onward referrals if the medication/investigation/referral being suggested fits with the usual scope of practice of an NHS GP. If this is not the case, then we may decline the suggestions made. If appropriate, we are happy to discuss a referral to a relevant NHS clinic for ongoing specialist care.

Patients who undergo procedures in the private sector, where follow up would usually be provided by a specialist clinic when undertaken by the NHS, must seek this follow up within the private sector. The Oaks Medical Centre will not undertake this follow up in these circumstances. Where possible, we are happy to discuss onward referral to the relevant NHS service if appropriate. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Follow up monitoring and blood tests for the first two years after bariatric surgery
• Follow up after cosmetic procedures

The Oaks Medical Centre will not take responsibility for tests undertaken by a private provider. Examples of this include:

• Private medical screening results
• Private scans
• Private blood tests

In these instances, the responsibility to act on the results of said test lies with the requesting clinician or service. Patients are encouraged to clarify before seeking private services such as the above how the results will be acted upon, and to avoid services that ask patients to see their NHS GP to interpret any abnormal results.

There may be instances where patients wish to access certain investigations in the private sector after consultation with us to ‘skip the queue’ within the NHS, with common examples being scans/x-rays/spirometry. In these circumstances, we may agree to interpret the results of said investigation if it lies within our usual scope of practice. These situations will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

In all other cases that fall outside of the above policy, decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis by The Partners of The Oaks Medical Centre.

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The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.