Practice Policies

Confidentiality & Medical Records

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).
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.

More information about access to medical records can be found on the Citizens Information website.

GDPR

Processing your personal information comes with significant responsibilities on our part, and we want you to know that we take those responsibilities very seriously.

Since Friday 25th May 2018, The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaced previous data protection laws in the European Union.

Please note we are no longer able to release medical information to family members or friends without signed consent from the patient. On the consent form, you are asked to nominate someone to collect your medical information on your behalf. Please inform the nominee that they may be asked for photo ID on arrival.

Equality and Respect

We are committed to treating all patients in a courteous, consistent and professional manner. We aim to have a mutually fair and respectful relationship with our patients and to provide equality of service to all patients in an environment which is free from discrimination or harassment.

Comments and Suggestions

We value feedback from our patients and welcome your comments and suggestions. Please put these in writing and mark for the attention of our Practice Manager.

Unacceptable Behaviour

At our practice we operate a No Tolerance policy regarding abusive or aggressive behaviour towards any member of our staff. We aim to provide a comprehensive and professional service in an efficient and pleasant manner to all our patients. We strive to provide a helpful and friendly environment. We would like to ask that patients co-operate with all our policies and treat our staff in a courteous manner. Safety is of paramount importance at our practice and, accordingly, any patient or visitor who is abusive or aggressive in a verbal or physical manner, will be asked to leave the premises immediately and will be removed from the patient list. We consider aggressive behaviour to include any personal, abusive or threatening comments, bad language, physical contact, aggressive gestures and theft or damage to property. We will not hesitate to contact the Gardaí.

Complaints Procedure

To register a complaint with the practice, please put it in writing and send it to our Practice Manager.

Please note: All complaints will be dealt with in a strictly confidential manner.

Website Privacy

Each time any visitor uses the Arklow Medical Practice website, we may collect one or both of two different types of information.

Non-individual specific statistics: The first type of information is statistical and analytical information collected on a nonindividual specific basis about visitors to our website. We gather general information about how many visitors use the website, how many visitors return to the website, what pages they visit etc. This information lets us monitor traffic on the website so that we can manage its capacity, efficiency, design and content. It helps us to understand website traffic patterns and to know, for example, which parts of the website are the most popular/useful.
Personal information: The second type is information which is personal or particular to a specific visitor. This information is collected by specific request so you will be fully aware when you are providing this information to us. This might arise when you book an appointment online/email us etc.

Security of Information Transmitted to our Website:

Arklow Medical Practice cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our website. Transmission of your personal information is at your own risk. Once we receive your personal information, we will use appropriate security measures to seek to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure.

External Websites:

Our website may contain links to and from other websites. Those websites have their own privacy policies and Arklow Medical Practice does not accept any responsibility or liability for those policies. You are advised to check those policies before you submit any personal information to those websites.

Arklow Medical Practice reserves the right to amend this policy at any time, at its discretion. You are encouraged to review this policy from time to time. We will notify you of changes to this policy where we are required to do so.