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The Freedom of Information Act - Publication Scheme | |
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PUBLICATION SCHEME Welcome to the Publication Scheme for Barraclough & Stiles Opticians as required by the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Introduction This publication scheme is a complete guide to the information routinely made available to the public by Barraclough & Stiles Opticians. It is a description of the information about our NHS services that we make publicly available. It will be reviewed at regular intervals and we will monitor its effectiveness. How much does it cost? The publications are free to print from this website. Where information is provided at cost, the charges will be calculated as set out in Class 7. How is the information made available? The information within each Class is available in hard copy from: 41 Western Roador can be printed from this website. Your Rights to Information
If you have any comments about the operation of the Publication Scheme, or how we have dealt with your request for information from the scheme, please write to: T. P. BarracloughClasses of Information All NHS information at Barraclough & Stiles Opticians is held, retained and destroyed within NHS guidelines. Our commitment to publish information excludes any information that can be legitimately withheld under the exemptions set out in the NHS Openness Code or Freedom of Information act 2000. From 2005, individual classes are subject to exemptions, the main reasons being the protection of commercial interests and personal information under the Data Protection Act 1998. This scheme had been written in accordance with those exemptions. The information on this scheme is grouped into the following categories: 1. Who we are Barraclough & Stiles Opticians. Optometrists and Contact Lens Practitioners. Established over 50 years. OUR PRACTICES
Details of all the Opticians and Optometrists employed in one of our stores (practices) can be obtained by clicking here or by contacting the practice directly. Barraclough & Stiles Opticians is the trading name of Barraclough and Stiles Ltd. Registered office at 41 Western Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN40 1DT. Reg. No. 5659600 given at Companies House, Cardiff. Registered in England and Wales. Alternatively, details of all Opticians and Optometrists registered in the UK are available from the General Optical Council. Tel: 0207 580 3898. 2. Our services All our practices provide free NHS eye tests for those who are eligible. You may also be entitled to vouchers that can be used against the purchase of glasses or contact lenses if you require them. To find out if you are eligible for assistance please click here, or visit the Examination page on this website. Alternatively you can ask for details in any of our practices. Appointments for eye tests can be booked over the phone, or by dropping into one of our practices. To find the address or phone number of your local practice, please click here. Opening times can vary between locations, so please call to confirm. 3. Financial and funding information For every eye test performed on behalf of the NHS the opticians practice receives a set fee of £19.32. This contributes towards expenses such as optometrist and staff salaries, equipment costs and other store overheads. If you are not eligible for the NHS eye test, please contact your local practice for details of our current charges, or visit the Examination page on this website. 4. Regular publications and information for the public A complete set of information about optical and ocular conditions, eye tests, glasses and contact lenses can be found on this website, or on a number of websites including www.college-optometrists.org. Some of this information is also available in patient leaflets. These are freely available from all our practices. 5. Complaints Procedure If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the optometrists or any of the staff, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria. We also participate in the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS), which deals with complaints about non NHS matters. Their address is shown below. How to complain We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible - ideally, within a matter of days or at most a few weeks - because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:
Complaining on behalf of someone else Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of clinical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of physical or mental illness) of providing this. What we shall do We aim to acknowledge your complaint within two working days and to have looked into your complaint within ten working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting. When we look into your complaint, we shall aim to:
We hope that, if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. But this does not affect your right to contact the local Health Authority, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation. For NHS matters you should contact the Complaints Officer Sue Toomey, 36 - 38 Frias Walk, Lewes, East Sussex, BN27 3PB. Complaining to the OCCS If you have a complaint about a non NHS matter and you feel you cannot raise it with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation, you should write to: The Optical Consumer Complaints Service, PO Box 4685, London, SE1 6ZB. Website: www.opticalcomplaints.co.uk 6. Our policies and procedures
41 Western Road7. This publication scheme In this class we will publish any changes we make to this publication scheme, the criteria on which our information management policies are made and a referral point for all enquiries regarding information management generally in practice. We will also publish any proposed changes or additions to publications already available. Cost of Information We will only charge for hard copies, or copies onto media. Charges are as follows and will be reviewed regularly.
WEBSITES: PUBLICATIONS: Copyright Material available through this publication scheme is copyright unless otherwise indicated. Unless expressly indicated to the contrary, it may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium, provided it is done so accurately in a manner that will not mislead. Where items are re-published or copied to others, you must identify the source and acknowledge copyright status. This permit does not extend to third party material, accessed through the scheme. For HMSO Guidance notes see www.hmso.gov.uk/guides.htm. |
