Terms and Conditions

At Berkeley Clinic, we prioritize creating a safe and comfortable environment for all patients to discuss their health concerns, especially when an intimate examination may be required.

We want you to feel at ease throughout all your interactions with our clinical staff.

There may be instances where having a chaperone present could provide you with additional comfort.

A chaperone can be a family member or friend, or, if available, one of our nurses or another staff member.

If you would like a chaperone to be present during your consultation, please inform our reception team when scheduling your appointment.

You may also request a chaperone upon arrival for your appointment; however, please note that we cannot guarantee a chaperone will be available on short notice.

In such cases, your examination may need to be rescheduled.

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We understand that occasionally we may fall short of expectations or make mistakes. We also recognize that there will be times when patients or their families feel the need to express dissatisfaction with the services or care provided at Berkeley Clinic. This complaints policy is designed to offer an open and transparent process to notify us when we have not met our usual high standards.

Our policy is to resolve any complaints as promptly as possible and ensure that every staff member is committed to listening to our patients’ concerns.

All complaints, whether verbal or written, will be taken seriously and handled with appropriate sensitivity and confidentiality by our doctors, nurses, and administrative staff.

We are committed to safeguarding the rights and dignity of our patients and staff as we implement this policy. We encourage our patients to inform us when we have not met their expectations, as this feedback is crucial for our continuous improvement. We will make necessary changes in response to any shortcomings whenever possible and in a timely manner.

Open Disclosure

At this practice, it is our policy to fully disclose to patients any information regarding shortcomings in care and treatment. If we determine that we have failed in our duty of care, we pledge to inform you directly rather than waiting for you to discover it by other means.

We will apologize when we fall short. It is the policy of this practice to offer an apology when we have not met our commitments to our patients. We support open disclosure and will communicate with our patients and their families in a transparent, honest, and straightforward manner if things go wrong.

We believe this approach is the right thing to do and represents the correct and ethical response to an adverse event. Open disclosure also enables patients and their families to make informed decisions about their subsequent care and treatment.

Managing Complaints Openly and Promptly

We are dedicated to resolving complaints at the earliest opportunity. All members of our practice team will handle feedback, whether positive or negative, with courtesy, respect, and efficiency, following the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that accompanies this policy. We also expect patients to treat all members of our practice team with respect when making a complaint.

We will publicize our procedure so that everyone knows how and with whom to raise an issue.

Our goal is always to resolve complaints in person and as quickly as possible. If the appropriate person is not available to address a complaint immediately, we will ensure that a team member contacts the patient or family as soon as possible. When an investigation is needed, patients and families will be involved from the beginning.

Anonymous Complaints

To ensure fairness, we cannot investigate anonymous complaints. However, we are willing to accept confidential complaints made directly to one of our GPs during a consultation, though there may be limits to how confidential it can remain if a thorough investigation is necessary.

Vexatious Complaints

If, after investigation, a complaint is found to be frivolous or vexatious, we will not pursue it further. If a complaint is deemed vexatious or malicious, it will not be recorded in the file of the staff member or service involved. Before a complaint is classified as vexatious, the staff member who receives it must bring it to the attention of the designated person in the practice.

Principles

Fairness and Equity: All complaints will be investigated fairly and transparently, and patients should not fear any retaliation for raising concerns. A consistent and standardized approach will be used to manage all complaints.
Respect: We will treat patients and families with respect and dignity and expect the same in return.
Accessibility: We will make our policy accessible and publicize it to patients and their families. Special attention will be given to the needs of individuals with specific requirements, such as older adults, children, people with disabilities, literacy challenges, and disadvantaged groups. A copy of this policy will be available upon request at reception.
Effectiveness and Efficiency: We aim to resolve all complaints effectively within clearly defined timeframes without compromising our principles.
Impartiality: All complaints will be handled impartially. Complainants will have the opportunity to be heard, and complaints will be investigated without bias toward any party involved.
Confidentiality: All information obtained during the complaint management process will be treated confidentially, following the requirements of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003.
Consent: We will ensure that consent to access patient-confidential information is obtained (or implied) from the complainant or the person on whose behalf the complaint is made.
Accountability: The procedures for investigating complaints will be transparent to the complainant throughout the process. Recommendations from investigations will be implemented when resources allow, with patient safety recommendations given priority. An appropriate action plan will be established promptly. Complaints will be recorded, and action plans will be monitored to ensure learning from them.
Right of Appeal: Patients will be informed of their rights concerning appeal processes and other avenues to pursue their complaint if they are dissatisfied with the local investigation.

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Confidentiality is a fundamental principle of medical ethics, one that all doctors take very seriously.

Your medical records are confidential to you, even after your death, except in certain limited circumstances. Your doctor will not breach this confidentiality without your consent, except in rare situations. They are also required to ensure your records are securely stored. At Berkeley Clinic, patient records are stored digitally within our patient management system. Any paper-based information related to your records is scanned and added to your digital file, after which the original paper documents are securely shredded. Your doctor must also ensure that your records are accurate and up to date.

If there is a request for a copy of your records, whether from you or a third party (such as your medical insurer), this policy outlines how such requests will be managed.

Personal Requests

As a general rule, you are entitled to a copy of your records. However, there are exceptions when releasing your records would compromise your health or breach our duty of confidentiality to others.

As your GP, we must first verify whether the request is from you or a third party. All requests for records must be submitted in writing, and this request will be kept on your file.

There are rare circumstances where we may release records without your consent, including:

Following a court order.
In accordance with legislative exceptions, such as notifiable diseases.
Under Children First guidelines where children may be at risk of neglect or harm.
Acting in the best interest of incapacitated patients.
When the public is at risk of serious harm to health or death.

Typically, your doctor will seek your consent to share relevant medical records with other healthcare professionals to ensure safe care delivery. You have the right to refuse consent to share this information, and any refusal, along with its rationale, will be documented in your file.

Third-Party Requests

There are various occasions when other healthcare professionals, family members, insurance companies, or solicitors request copies of your records or reports. In such cases, it is our policy to inform you of the request and obtain your consent. If you refuse, we will consider your reasons for refusal and document the refusal accordingly.

Family members may sometimes request copies of records. This information will not be provided without your consent. For example, when adult children are involved in the care of elderly parents, we will always seek the parent’s consent before disclosing any information.

Insurance companies and solicitors frequently request information or reports related to claims made by patients, often on the basis that consent has been given. In these situations, regardless of the claimed consent, we will redact (remove) any information deemed irrelevant to the matter at hand from your records. We will then ask you to review the redacted copy and approve it for release before drafting any report or agreeing to any transfer of information.

However, we cannot redact information that is relevant to the issue at hand and cannot provide a medical report if you choose not to give consent in these cases.

For further details on privacy and confidentiality, please refer to our Confidentiality Statement.

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Berkeley Clinic is dedicated to ensuring the highest standard of medical care for our patients.

We recognize that confidentiality is a core principle of medical ethics and fundamental to the trust between patients and doctors.

Our privacy practices align with the Medical Council guidelines, the privacy principles of the Data Protection Acts, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the ICGP Guide to Data Protection Legislation for Irish General Practice.

We view patient consent as the key factor in handling health information.

This statement aims to make consent meaningful by informing you of our policies and practices regarding your medical information.

Managing Your Information

To provide effective patient care, we must collect and maintain information about patients and their health in our records. We are committed to securely retaining patient information. We will only ask for and retain information that is necessary, and we strive to keep it accurate and up to date. If a patient is unsure why certain information is needed, we will explain its purpose.

We ask all patients to inform us of any relevant changes that we should be aware of, such as new treatments or investigations that we may not know about. Patients should also update us with any changes in address or phone numbers.

All staff members in the practice who are not already covered by a professional confidentiality code are required to sign a confidentiality agreement. This agreement clearly outlines their responsibilities concerning personal health information and the consequences of breaching that duty.

Access to patient records is regulated to ensure they are used only to the extent necessary for employees, whether secretaries, managers, or healthcare professionals, to perform their tasks effectively.

Patients should understand that practice staff may access their records for tasks such as:

Identifying and printing repeat prescriptions, which are reviewed and signed by the GP.
Generating social welfare certificates, which are checked and signed by the GP.
Typing referral letters to hospital consultants or allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and dieticians.
Opening letters from hospitals and consultants, which may be appended to a patient’s paper file or scanned into their electronic patient record.
Scanning clinical letters, radiology reports, and other documents not available electronically.
Downloading laboratory results and Out of Hours Co-op reports and integrating these into the electronic patient record.
Photocopying or printing documents for referrals to consultants, attending an antenatal clinic, or when a patient is changing GP.
Checking if a hospital or consultant letter, or a laboratory or radiology result, has been returned, to schedule a conversation with the GP.
Checking if a patient is due for any preventative services, such as vaccinations, antenatal visits, contraceptive pill checks, cervical smear tests, etc.
Handling, printing, photocopying, and posting medico-legal and life assurance reports, and associated documents.

Information Disclosure

We always adhere to Freedom of Information and Data Protection principles. The practice is committed to preventing accidental disclosures of confidential patient information. Before disclosing identifiable information about patients, the practice will:

Be clear about the purpose of the disclosure.
Obtain the patient’s consent or ensure there is another legal basis for disclosing the information.
Consider using anonymized information and ensure it is necessary to use identifiable information.
Ensure that the minimum information is disclosed to the minimum number of people necessary.
Confirm that the intended recipient understands the information is confidential and that they have their own duty of confidentiality.

Disclosure with Consent

If a patient can make their own decisions about their healthcare, we will seek their consent before sharing confidential information that identifies them with relatives, close friends, for research purposes, or with disease registers.

If the patient does not consent to the disclosure of identifiable information, we will respect that decision unless failing to disclose would put the patient or others at risk of serious harm, or if the disclosure is required by law or in the public interest as outlined below.

Patients should understand and accept that their healthcare information must be shared within the healthcare team and with support staff to provide effective and safe care. If disclosing a patient’s information within our practice or to other healthcare providers is necessary as part of their treatment and care, we will explain this to the patient and ensure the information is shared with an appropriate person who understands their duty of confidentiality. If a patient objects to the transfer of information we consider necessary, we will explain that we cannot arrange a referral or treatment without disclosing the information.

We recognize that clinical audits, quality assurance, education, and training are essential for providing safe and effective healthcare. If we are sharing patient information for any of these activities, we will ensure that the information is anonymized or coded before being disclosed outside the healthcare team. If anonymization is not possible, we will inform the patient in advance and provide the opportunity to object. We will respect the patient’s wishes regarding the disclosure.

Disclosure Without Consent

In certain circumstances, we are required to disclose patient information by law or in the public interest. We will inform the patient in advance of such a disclosure unless doing so would cause them serious harm or undermine the purposes of the disclosure.

We will disclose patient information when required by law, such as in response to a court order or infectious disease notification, or if we have a reasonable belief that a crime involving sexual assault or other violence has been committed against a child or another vulnerable person. We may also disclose information in the public interest to protect a patient, other identifiable individuals, or the wider community. Before making such a disclosure, we will ensure that the potential harm to the patient from the disclosure is outweighed by the benefits likely to arise for the patient or others. The disclosure will be limited to the minimum information and the minimum number of people necessary.

If a patient lacks the capacity to give consent and is unlikely to regain capacity, we may consider making a disclosure only if it is in the patient’s best interests.

As a general rule, we will always inform the patient in advance that we are disclosing information without their consent and explain why we are doing so, unless doing so would put the patient or a third party at risk of serious harm.

Requests for Records Before and After a Patient’s Death

If we receive a request from a patient to release a copy of their records, we will carefully consider our obligation to remove all references to third parties.

In the case of requests for disclosures to insurance companies or requests made by solicitors for a patient’s records, we will only release the information with the patient’s signed consent.

We recognize that patient information remains confidential even after death. If it is unclear whether a patient consented to the disclosure of information after their death, we will consider how the disclosure might benefit or distress the family or carers, its impact on the deceased’s reputation, and the purpose of the disclosure. We require written consent from the personal representative or executor of the deceased’s will to disclose a deceased patient’s records. We also understand that a GP’s discretion may be limited if a disclosure is required by law.

Medical Reports

We will only prepare a medical report on a patient with the patient’s consent. The report will be specific to the episode for which it has been requested. We understand that a medical report requested by a third party, such as an employer, insurance company, or legal representative, must be factual, accurate, and not misleading. We will ensure that the patient understands the scope and purpose of the report and that the GP cannot omit relevant information. We will also ensure the patient is aware of our duty of care to them and to the person or company requesting the report.

Recordings

We do not make or allow recordings of any kind during consultations with our GPs. If any such recording is made, we are committed to ensuring that any audio, visual, or photographic recordings of a patient or a patient’s relative, in which the person is identifiable, are made only with that person’s express consent. The recordings will be kept confidential as part of the patient’s record, and we will take all possible steps to protect their confidentiality. We will obtain consent before sharing any videos, photos, or other images of a patient.

We will only take images of patients on a GP’s personal mobile device when necessary for the patient’s care and with the patient’s express permission. Such images will not identify the patient and will be kept for the minimum time necessary.

Medical Certificates

In general, work-related medical certificates from a GP will only confirm that a patient is unfit for work, with an indication of when they will be fit to resume work. If additional information is considered necessary, we will discuss this with the patient. However, Social Welfare Certificates of Incapacity for work must include the medical reason the patient is unfit to work.

Your Right to Access Your Health Information

You have the right to access all personal information held about you by this practice. If you wish to see your records, it is usually quickest to discuss this with your doctor, who can outline the information in the record with you. You can also make a formal written access request to the practice, which will be handled formally.

Transferring to Another Practice

If you decide at any time and for any reason to transfer to another practice, we will facilitate that decision by providing your new doctor with a copy of your records upon receiving your signed consent. For medico-legal reasons, we will also retain a copy of your records in this practice for an appropriate period, which may exceed eight years.