Practitioner Services - Enabling Primary Care

Customer Care Policy

Practitioner Services is a division of NHS National Services Scotland, it is responsible for the payment and verification for treatment and services provided by General Practitioners, Community Pharmacists, Dentists and Opticians in Scotland. Practitioner Services is responsible for receiving and processing data from all the contractor streams and the Health Boards in Scotland and for supplying payment details to Practitioner Services Finance Departments in order that all contractors are reimbursed within agreed timescales and in line with the relevant NHS legislation. Practitioner Services also undertake clinical governance on behalf of Health Boards for dentists and maintain a national database of NHS patient registration. Services are provided from seven sites across Scotland. In addition to the operations teams, there are Central Support teams (Support Services, Business Systems, Finance and Human Resources).

Quality Statement

  • Practitioner Services will strive to ensure that all customer requirements are satisfied or exceeded; this will be achieved primarily by accurate data processing to agreed timescales.
  • We shall provide advice on payment issues to assist our customers and all processes shall be developed with our customer's requirements and statutory and legal requirements uppermost.
  • We are committed to the effective and efficient use of resources, ensuring value for money is obtained from the services we provide.
  • Quality is a basic business principle and its improvement is the responsibility of every employee.
  • Practitioner Services is committed to provide training and resources to staff, in order to continually improve our operations.

Legislation

We support the Scottish Government in implementing legislative and regulatory changes.

Purpose

The purpose of the customer care policy is to outline the general principles that Practitioner Services seek to apply in all dealings with their customers. To provide accurate, timely, meaningful information and to ensure continuous improvement, it is essential that we maintain good relations with our customers, to detect and eliminate potential problems and act upon improvement opportunities both quickly and effectively.

Objective

To develop a consistent approach to customer care within Practitioner Services.

Customers

Contractors - Pharmacists, General Practitioners, Dentists and Opticians, practice staff, Nurses, NHS Boards, patients, our staff, visitors and external bodies such as Community Pharmacy Scotland, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Public Pensions Agency and the General Dental Council.

Policy

  • Respond to written, verbal or electronic communications from customers courteously, promptly and efficiently.
  • Ensure that data we hold on our databases is accurate, up to date and secure.
  • Forward patient sensitive data accurately, confidentially and effectively.
  • Forward a customer satisfaction questionnaire to a sample of customers annually.
  • Support NHS National Services Scotland complaints procedure which can be accessed on the NSS web site.
  • Provide our staff with appropriate customer care training.
  • Include customer care skills in our job descriptions and knowledge and skills framework.
  • Hold regular meetings with staff to maintain service level and communication.
  • Any suggestions to improve our services will be acted upon.

Scope - Practitioner Services Sites

Practitioner Services customer care policy applies to all the sites listed below.

  • Pharmacy, Dental, Ophthalmic, Bain Square, Livingston
  • Dental, Meridian Court, Glasgow
  • Medical, Meridian Court, Glasgow
  • Pharmacy, Meridian Court, Glasgow
  • Pharmacy, Medical, Bridge View, Aberdeen
  • Dental, Ophthalmic, Medical, Pharmacy, Support Services, Gyle Square, Edinburgh

Access

Information about us is available electronically on SHOW and is available all year round.

Responsibility

The responsibility for implementation of this policy lies with the Director of Practitioner Services.

Customer complaints will be monitored and the results of customer satisfaction surveys will be analysed to provide evidence that we are fulfilling the Customer Care Policy. Any adverse findings will be acted upon to continually improve the service that we provide.

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