To view the patient charter please click here.

Lapal Medical Practice is a Safe surgery, please click below for more information.

We are a Safe Surgery

What is Proxy Access?

Proxy access was developed to allow someone other than the patient to access and manage parts of their GP online services account. The person acting on behalf of the patient for example a parent or carer (the proxy) is given their own online access account (rather than using the patient’s login details).

To obtain proxy access a person must be registered for online access at the practice where the patient they are acting for is registered. Proxy access is the recommended alternative to sharing login details. Every practice is required to verify patient identity documentation, or individually vouch for each patient requesting access to online services.

Please contact the practice who will advise how to request Proxy Access.

• Please treat all staff with due respect, we are all just doing our job.
• Do not ask for information for anyone else other than yourself.
• Tell us of any change of name or address, so that our records are accurate. You can do this by using our Change of Details Form.

• Only request an urgent appointment if appropriate.
• Home visits should only be requested if you are really too ill to attend surgery, and night visits should be for emergency only.
• Please cancel your appointment if you are unable to attend.
• Please be punctual but be prepared to wait if your own consultation is delayed by an unexpected emergency.
• Please allow sufficient time for your consultant’s letter or the results of any tests to reach us.
• Use the tear-off slip to request your repeat prescription whenever possible.
• Please attend for review, when asked, before your prescription is due.

As a patient you have the right to:

• Be registered with a named doctor.
• Change doctor if desired (but please remember that you may have to see any of the doctors if your need is urgent).
• Receive emergency care.
• Receive appropriate drugs and medicines.
• Be referred for specialist or second opinion if they and GP agrees.
• See your medical records or a copy, subject to certain laws.
• Know that by law, everyone working for the NHS must keep the contents of your medical records private.

With these rights come responsibilities for the public. That means being:

• Courteous to staff at all times.
• As prompt as possible for all appointments.
• Responsible for cancelling appointments in adequate time.

Our aim is to provide the highest level of care for all our patients. We will always be willing to hear if there is any way that you think that we can improve the service we provide.

If you would like to give us any feedback or wish to make a complaint, please complete our Feedback/ Contact Form.

We hope that, if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice.

Taking your complaint further

If you want to make a complaint about primary care services to the commissioner, you will now contact the Black Country Integrated Care Board instead of NHS England.

You can do this by: 

Telephone: 0300 0120 281
Email: bcicb.time2talk@nhs.net
Writing to us at: Time2Talk, NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB) Civic Centre, St Peter’s Square, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SH

Care Quality Commission (CQC)

Citygate
Gallowgate
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE1 4PA

Telephone: 0300 616161

Email: enquiries@cqc.org.uk

GDPR Privacy Notice

All GP practices are required to declare the mean earnings (e.g. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

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 Lapal Medical Practice in the last financial year was £87,351 before tax and National Insurance.

This is for 4 part time GPs and 2 part time salaried GPs who worked in the practice for more than six months.

The following facilities are available at the practice:

Wheelchair access

Accessible toilets

Disabled parking

Hearing loop.

(This Privacy Notice is to run alongside our standard Practice Privacy Notice)

As we move away from the initial response to COVID-19 the health and social care system will need to continue to take action to manage and mitigate the spread and impact of the outbreak. This includes ensuring that approved researchers can continue to securely access pseudonymised data held by GP IT systems to assist the health and care service’s response to COVID-19 by, for example:

• recognising trends in COVID-19 diseases and identifying risks it poses
• controlling and preventing the spread of COVID-19
• monitoring and managing outbreaks

The OpenSAFELY COVID-19 research service provides a secure analytics service that supports COVID-19 research, COVID-19 clinical audit, COVID-19 service evaluation and COVID-19 health surveillance purposes.

Under the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020 NHS England has been directed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to establish and operate the OpenSAFELY service.  While each GP practice remains the data controller of its own patient data, they are required under the provisions of s259 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to provide access to de-identified (pseudonymised) patient data through the OpenSAFELY service.

The service enables individuals (academics, analysts and data scientists) approved by NHS England to run queries on pseudonymised GP and NHS England patient data which is held within the GP system suppliers’ data environments.  Controls are in place to ensure that individuals only have access to aggregated outputs from the service (i.e. they cannot access information that either directly or indirectly identifies individuals).

Purpose of this Notice

OpenSAFELY service is used to analyse de-identified (pseudonymised) data within the EMIS and TPP boundaries, to support COVID-19 related research.

This is a continuation of a service which is supported by the BMA which has been operating since 2020. The permanent legal basis (the COVID-19 Direction) above allows the practice to provide this data to NHSE as an ongoing service.

The OpenSAFELY service is a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) established within the secure environment of EMIS and TPP. Researchers write their analysis code away from the patient data; the code is run automatically on de-identified (pseudonymised) patient data; and only the aggregated outputs (now anonymous) are shared with researchers to be used, for example, in journal publications, reports or presentations.

These controls keep patient data secure inside EMIS and TPP and confidential from researchers. The use of TREs and the data processing principles which OpenSAFELY represents is supported by the RCGP.

To date, this service has supported a range of important COVID-19 related research, including one of the world’s first and largest studies to identify the clinical factors associated with COVID-19 related death, which informed the national COVID-19 vaccination strategy and Green Book guidance. Other studies have also informed COVID-19 related NICE guidance and decisions made by SAGE.

All NHS England approved research studies are published online, including sharing the exact analysis code each study used to analyse the patient data, by whom and when such code was run. In future, NHSE will also publish approvals on our data release register.

During the pandemic, and in the recovery phase, de-identified data has been crucial in helping to save lives. It has supported research into COVID-19 and the ways that it has affected our lives, our health, and to identify effective medicines and treatments.

Research has helped to identify new treatments for COVID-19 and to understand how we can keep our communities safe. Data has helped us to prioritise the right care to the most vulnerable in our society and to develop vaccines to protect against COVID-19.

If you have any questions, please contact us at gpdata@nhs.net

Recording of processing

 A record will be kept by Lapal Medical Practice of all data processed under this Notice.

Sending Public Health Messages

Data protection and electronic communication laws will not stop Lapal Medical Practice from sending public health messages to you, either by phone, text or email as these messages are not direct marketing.

Digital Consultations

It may also be necessary, where the latest technology allows Lapal Medical Practiceto do so, to use your information and health data to facilitate digital consultations and diagnoses and we will always do this with your security in mind.

Creating a new NHS England: NHS England and NHS Digital merged on 1 February 2023. All references to NHS Digital now, or in the future, relate to NHS England.