Petts Wood Osteopathic Clinic 
Petts Wood Osteopathic Clinic Patients Charter
Patients Charter:
Each and every client / patient will be treated as an individual, respecting their concerns, given dignity and courtesy at all times. We aim to listen to our clients and respect their preferences.
You will almost always be consulted within 15 minutes of your appointment time and will be advised of any delays and given the reason for this. All information about you, whether written down or just given verbally is kept strictly confidential and is only disclosed to other individuals with your prior consent.
You will be given the appropriate advice, care and treatment / therapy and the diagnosis and therapy will be fully explained and made sure you understand it for you to give informed consent for the treatment.
You have a right to see your records kept at the clinic, subject to certain safeguards - if you require copies of your records there is a fee for this service. You have a right, subject to certain safeguards, to see any medical report written for an employer, prospective employer or insurer, by the osteopath responsible for your care.
You can refuse treatment if you wish; when you visit an Osteopath, this usually implies consent to examination and treatment. The osteopath cannot act against specific instructions, so you should tell the osteopath about any treatment you do not want.
If there are a number of alternative therapies / treatments which can be used to treat your condition, you should be given information on these. However, you cannot insist on a particular treatment if the Osteopath thinks this is not appropriate.
Organisations and people providing health services are not allowed to discriminate against you, for example because of race, sex, disability, religion or belief or sexuality.
Complaints Procedure:
Step 1: Phone the clinic and tell us of your concern.
Please telephone the clinic and speak to the practitioner directly about your concerns. If you get the answer machine, leave a short message for the practitioner to contact you as soon as possible. We will make every effort to return your call within 24 hours.
Step2: Make a formal complaint to the Clinic Director.
Please write to the clinic Director directly (Simon Tolson) at the clinic address. Your concern will be acknowledged within a week in writing and thereafter each week if and while any investigation is on-going to updated you of the progress of your concern.
Step 3: Mediation.
If after steps 1 and 2 you are still unhappy or if you wish not to directly go to the Clinic Director with your concern, we will provide an independent professional mediator. The mediator will contact you to establish the full details of your concern and then bring your concern before the clinic. This can lead to a period of discussion and even some mediated meetings to resolve the situation.
Step 4: Professional Registration Body.
The last step for dealing with your concern is for it to be handled by one of the Statutory Registered Bodies for Health Care. This is usually a last resort as the process is very time consuming and the Registering Body would usually like to see that all the previous avenues have been exhausted.
