Current Topic

Change

Appointments

• A new version of this page now combines Arriving Patients, Casual Patients, Late Arrival and DNA, and Patient Fees and Payments.
• Many of the detailed administration processes have been removed to allow the policy to focus on legislative regulations and compliance.
• A new Lone Worker policy will be ready by mid-April and will include health and safety information about home and off-site visits.
• Practices who don't charge fees will be given a different version.

Aggressive People

• This new page combines key information from Building and Staff Security, Violent and Abusive Patients, and Trespass Notice, into one more concise page.
• The new page has been placed into the Health and Safety section.

Arriving Patients

• Page removed. Key information has been moved to the new Appointments page.

Building and Staff Security

• Page removed. Key Information about building and staff security has been moved to the new Aggressive Patients page. Information about security will be added to a new Lone Workers page.

Casual Patients

• Page removed. Information about practice's policy on seeing casual patients has been moved to the new Appointments page.

Late Arrival and DNA

• Page removed. Information about late arrivals, cancellations, and no-shows has been added to the Appointments page.

Patient Fees and Payments

• Page removed Information about patient fees and payments has been moved to the new Appointments page.

Trespass Notice

• Optional page, removed. Information about trespass notices has been moved into the Aggressive People page.

Violent and Abusive Patients

• This page has been reworked and replaced by the new Aggressive Patients page, as part of your Health and Safety policy set.

Developing an Equitable Workforce

• Gap analysis section wording changed to make it clearer that this is just a framework for thinking about the gaps in the team rather than a formal plan.

Cold Chain Management

• Table removed. We are no longer including information in this policy about the location of your cold chain equipment.
• Removed cold chain responsible staff and resources.
• This information should already be in your cold chain management policy document that we link to. There is no need to also duplicate it in GPDocs.

Foundation Training

• Added a link to the Staff Training Register template to record all staff training for Foundation.

Prescriptions

• Updated guidance about repeat prescription audits to "up to 10 patients per prescriber" to align with RNZCGP recommendation.

Complaints

• Short section added describing how complaints by/about staff are handled.

Patient Information Privacy

• A drop box containing information about checking processes when handling patient information has been added to the section on using patient information. It contains guidance around safe handling of information through emails, during transit, in storage, or when being viewed at the practice.

Managing Infectious Patients

• Added separate sections in the Red-stream procedure list for patients who have symptoms when making an appointment, and patients who have symptoms at arrival.

Repeat Prescriptions

• Updated best practice recommendations to refer to MIMS medicines information.

Hazardous Substances

• Added link to Worksafe and updated the relevant information drop box. This contains Worksafe's guidance around what should be included in the inventory for each hazardous substance.

Te Reo and Tikanga Māori

• Renamed from Te Reo and Tikanga in Health Care. Added links to ProCare Ihi app as a resource for Te Ao Māori.