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Our policies and procedures

In this section you'll find our current written protocols, policies and procedures for delivering our services.

As well as the policies in the table, you'll also find additional information on:

• Policies and procedures relating to the conduct of business and the provision of services
• Complaints and other customer service policies and procedures
• Being open
• What we charge for certain information

Policies and procedures relating to the conduct of business and the provision of services

There are a number of key documents requiring compliance by NEAS, its executive and non-executive directors, officers and employees in order to ensure that sound governance is in place and which together, provide a regulatory framework for business conduct of the service.  These are referred to as Trust Protocols and are outlined as follows:  

• Standing Orders  This document provides a framework for internal governance and primarily deals with the functioning of the board.   
• Standing Financial Instructions  This document provides a framework for financial governance and details the financial responsibilities, policies and procedures to be adopted by NEAS.  They are designed to ensure that financial transactions are carried out in accordance with the law.
• Schedule of Decisions Reserved to the Board   Boards need to determine those matters on which decisions are reserved to it.  Certain powers are retained for use by the board only and these feature on this schedule.  
• Scheme of Delegation  The board may determine that some powers shall be exercised by certain committees.   Details of these are contained in that document.  

The above protocols refer to key policies that should be read in conjunction with those documents in the business and provision of services part of the table above. 

Complaints and other customer service policies and procedures

Advice regarding how to complain (or how to compliment) the service is available here on the website. A leaflet entitled, 'How to complain' has been produced by NEAS and is available here 

NEAS genuinely wishes to learn from its mistakes and takes all complaints seriously.  A Patient Involvement and Complaints Committee monitors all aspects of complaints made to us including trend analysis.  The Patient Involvement and Complaints Committee includes a PALS representative and is chaired by a Non Executive Director.

To find out more about the complaints policy, click here.

Being Open

Patient safety incidents can have devastating emotional and physical consequences for patients, their families and carers and can be distressing for the professionals involved.

Being open about what happened and discussing patient safety incidents promptly, fully and compassionately can help patients and professionals to cope better with the after effects.

Openness and honesty can also help to prevent such events becoming formal complaints and litigation claims. The following set of principles has been developed to help healthcare organisations create and embed a culture of Being Open:

1. Acknowledgement
2. Truthfulness, timeliness and clarity of communication
3. Apology
4. Recognising patient and carer expectations
5. Professional support
6. Risk management and systems improvement
7. Multidisciplinary responsibility
8. Clinical governance
9. Confidentiality
10. Continuity of care

You can read our Being Open Policy here

What we charge for certain information

Freedom of Information (FOI)  

Should the number of hours required to obtain and provide information under the Freedom of Information Act exceed the £450 threshold (of £25 per hour - set in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection [Appropriate Limit and Fees] Regulations 2004), NEAS is not obliged to comply with the request.  It should however, and it is obliged to do so, offer advice and assistance under Section 16.  NEAS will endeavour to discuss with the applicant, the possibility of refining the request to cost less.

NEAS does not charge for materials used to provide responses to FOI requests, however, it is entitled to do so at a cost to be determined by NEAS, should the response require significant resources to be produced. 

The full policy is available here.

Subject Access Request

The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) gives individuals certain rights regarding information held about them. It places obligations on those who process information (data controllers) while giving rights to those who are the subject of that data (data subjects).  Requests for access to records and for other information about those records are known as "subject access requests" and are made to the person or organisation (the "data controller") who you think is processing (holding, disclosing or using) the information to which you want access.  Personal data may take the form of computerised or, in some cases, paper records.

The current fee to obtain information is set out below:

• Copies of computerised health records -£10
• Copies of manual health records: up to a maximum of£50.00(fee inclusive of any computerised records)
• Access to view health records -£10.00

The full policy is available here.