About

Patient Charter

Responsive care delivered in privacy, with compassion, dignity and respect. You have the right:

• To expect that your confidentiality is respected by all MYA staff.

• To be cared for in a safe and clean environment and in surroundings designed to promote well-being and comfort.

• To be addressed by your preferred name/title.

• To personal dignity and privacy.

• To be treated with equality by staff who are aware, understand and recognise your social, cultural diversity, values and beliefs and religious traditions, this also applies to your family.

• To have a chaperone present during an intimate examination.

• To seek a second opinion on diagnosis and treatment options, in agreement with your Surgeon.

• To be given a clear explanation of your condition and any treatment, investigations or procedures proposed, including risks and alternatives, provided in a manner that you can understand, before agreeing on a course of action to be taken and signing your consent form, if applicable.

• To have your decisions about your treatment and care respected.

• To be cared for by a friendly, efficient team who ensure you are involved in decisions about your treatment and aim to promote your independence.

• To be informed in advance, where possible, of any change of the date and time of treatment/ operation.

• To have access to your medical records (under the Data Protection Act 1998) and be sure that the information recorded in your health record will remain confidential to those caring for you.

• To an investigation of any complaints, both clinical and non-clinical under the MYA Complaints policy.

• Our staff have the right to expect that you, your family and your visitors will treat them with the respect, courtesy and consideration that you would expect yourself. If you have any questions regarding your rights, please speak to the Sister in charge of your ward or the relevant department manager.

Clinical Governance

Our Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) outlined below must approve a surgeon but also have access to their clinical performance data and regularly review returns to theatre and complications. The MAC also benchmarks against industry standards and expects our surgeons to significantly out-perform them.

It is not just surgeons' surgical skills that are assessed, but also their bedside manner. We collect feedback from our patients as part of our extensive aftercare regime and one key area that we assess is how the surgeon has communicated to the patient.

MYA hold monthly clinical governance meetings where there is a set agenda to discuss complaints, adverse incidents, revision rates, surgeon validation and performance, clinical issues, policy changes, infection control and any other relative business. The clinical and infection control annual work programme and progress is also tracked within this meeting. This group has set standards to ensure MYA are holding clinical care and patient safety as paramount. Prominent issues raised from these meetings are put forward to the Medical Advisory Committee (MAC).

MAC - Our Medical Advisory Committee consists of select board directors, chaired by the Medical Director and any other key staff members upon invite. The MAC is responsible for approving policies, business changes, managing clinical governance and approving the appointment of new Surgeons into MYA's team. The key aim of this group is to ensure patient safety is paramount and to ensure MYA always embrace research, evidence-based practice and clinical efficient care for patients.

CQC

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent watchdog for all health and social care services in England. They work to make sure that care we receive, regardless of whether it's at hospital, dentists, ambulances, care homes cosmetic surgery clinics or elsewhere, is up to scratch and meets government standards of quality and safety. Before 1st April 2009, this regulation was overseen by the Healthcare Commission which no longer exists.

The CQC main activities include:

• Registration of health and social care providers to ensure they are meeting essential common quality standards.

• Monitoring and inspections.

• Using enforcement powers, such as fines and public warnings or closures, if standards are not being met.

• Improving health care services by undertaking regular reviews of how well those who arrange and provide services locally are performing and special reviews on particular care services, pathways of care or themes where there are particular concerns about quality.

• Reporting the outcomes of their work so that people who use services have information about the quality of their local healthcare services. It helps those who arrange and provide services to see where improvement is needed and learn from each other about what works best

You are able to check the latest reports from your local MYA clinic’s CQC report at http://www.cqc.org.uk/ and use the search box e.g. MYA Newcastle