Training and Audit

Training

The Practice is actively involved in the training of future General Practitioners.  There are two types of trainee that you may encounter when you visit the centre.

1.   Medical Students
Medical students in their final year of training are occasionally attached to the Practice from NewcastleUniversity.  You may be asked if you would mind seeing and talking to a student prior to your appointment with the doctor.  You will then see the Doctor who will involve the student in the resulting discussion of your problem.  The students are only involved in a minority of appointments and if you prefer not to see them, your wishes will be respected.

2.   GP Registrars
Our preactice is past of the Tees Valley Vocational Training Scheme. GP Registrars are fully qualified Doctors who have completed their hospital training and are about to embark on a career in General Practice.  Such are the demands in family medicine these days that all Doctors who wish to become GPs have to do a further 3 years training after their time in hospital.  Of this, a year is spent specifically in General Practice.  Unlike students, they are attached to the Practice full time for a 6 or 12 month period.  They are expected to share in the duties of the Practice including on call duties and out of hours.  They conduct surgeries on their own although there will always be one of the partners available to advise the registrar.  On occasions we video record consultations.  This is for training purposes only.  If a doctor wishes to record the consultation you will be asked at reception.  There will be a form to sign before you see the doctor and again afterwards.  You are free to withdraw your consent at any time or ask for the camera to be switched off.  The form will tell you who may see the recording.  No intimate physical examinations will be recorded.  The recording will be erased after use.

Research, Audit and Data Collection

The staff at this practice records information about you and your health so that you can receive the right care and treatment.  We need to record this information, together with the details of the care you receive, so that it is available each time we see you.

The information recorded about you may be used for reasons other than your personal care, for example, to help to protect the health of the general public, to plan for the future, to train staff and to carry out medical and other health research.

The local Health Authority (Hartlepool PCT) requests information as part of quality control of our medical services.

We are involved in research studies which require access to anonymous information from patients’ notes.  You cannot be identified from these notes as all personal details (name, address, post code, full date of birth) are all removed.  Individual patients’ records are added into a much larger anonymous database from many patients across the UK which is used by researchers outside this practice.

If you would like to opt out of this data collection scheme, please let your doctor know and no data from your records will be collected or used in research.  This will not affect your care in any way.

If anything to do with the research would require that you provide additional information about yourself, you will be contacted by your GP to see if you are willing to take part; you will not be identified in any published results.

You have a right of access to your health records.  If at any time you would like to know more, or have any concerns about how we use your information, you can speak to ‘Michelle Martin’ Telephone number: 01429 272679

EVERYONE WORKING FOR THE NHS HAS A LEGAL DUTY TO KEEP INFORMATION ABOUT YOU CONFIDENTIAL