Making decisions about your care with your doctor or nurse (shared decision making)

When you visit your doctor’s surgery you will often find that there are decisions to be made about your health and the treatments that might be available to you.  This includes when you are choosing between different types of treatment or different ways of managing any condition(s) you have.  When these decisions are made it is important that you are part of that process, so that you are able to come to the best decisions based on what is important to you.

Shared Decision Making

Your doctor/nurse is an expert about health and health care. You are an expert in knowing about yourself, the impact that any conditions have on you, and what is important to you in treating your condition and in your wider life.  When you and your doctor/nurse work together to share what you both know, and then use all of that information to come to a decision together, this is called ‘Shared Decision Making’.

How to get involved

In order for you to be involved in decisions about your care there are three key things you need to know;

1. What are my options?
2. What are the possible risks, benefits and consequences of each option?
3. How can we make a decision together that is right for me?

With shared decision making your doctor/nurse is there to support you by providing good quality information, helping you understand this information, and giving you support and guidance as you think about what is most important to you.  This will help you to understand what choices are available to you, the pros and cons of each option, and then use that information to come to a decision together about the best option for you.

If you would like to know more about Shared Decision Making the following video provides further information.

Where to find more information

Here are some links to information which may help you make any decisions about your healthcare

Patient Decision Aids

Patient Decision Aids (PDAs) are designed to help you decide which treatments and care options are best for you.

PDAs are useful because they allow you to pick out the things that are most important to you (your values) and make comparisons about how different treatments might affect these values.  Patient decision aids have been developed for a number of common health care decisions and your doctor/nurse may use one or refer you on to one when you talk with them, or you might find it useful to look at one by yourself.  If you would like to know more about patient decision aids and look at some of the patient decision aids that are publicly available, the following websites :

Decision aids developed in the UK

An international inventory of decision aids 

If you are looking for information about the risk of cardio vascular disease or Type 2 diabetes and ways in which those risks can be reduced these sites contains some useful information:

The Absolute CVD Risk/Benefit Calculator

Q Intervention

Your Rights to Information

The Freedom of Information Act (FOI) 2000 provides members of the public with the right access information held by public authorities.  

Public authorities are required to routinely publish certain information to the public as part of its normal business activities. This is known as a publication scheme.

The St Isan Road Surgery Publication Scheme is designed to signpost individuals to information we proactively release as and when it becomes available. The aim of this is to explain what information the practice makes available to the public and where possible to provide an easy method of accessing it.

The Publication Scheme contains seven classes of information, as follows, and information falling into each of these classes is published on our practice website:

• Who we are and what we do
• What we spend and how we spend it
• What are our priorities and how we are doing
• How we make decisions
• Our policies and procedures
• Register of members’ interests
• Services we offer

All the information we proactively release is available free of charge on our website. Our publication scheme is a useful place to start if you’re looking for information about St Isan Road Surgery before making a Freedom of Information request.

Information that is not published under the FOI Publication Scheme can be requested in writing and the release of such information will be considered in accordance with the provisions of the FOI Act 2000.

To make a Freedom of Information request, please email contact the practice enquiries.w97053@wales.nhs.uk or write to:

Partners of St Isan Road Surgery

St Isan Road Surgery

46 St Isan Road

Heath

Cardiff

CF14 4UU

 

Who we are and what we do?

The practice looks after a population lust size of 7,500 patients approximately, and work as part of the North Cardiff Collaborative, which is made up of 10 separate practices. 

Our team consists of:

Partners: 3
Salaried GPs: 3
Nurses: 3
Health Care Support Worker: 1
The Practice Support Team: 9

We are a training practice and teach medical students and train GP Registrars.

St Isan Road Surgery has grown to become a well established practice within the Heath area of Cardiff that prides itself on providing excellent healthcare services for patients. 

BUT how did we get here?

The first recorded healer in the practice area was, in the 5^th Century, St. Isan who established his llan or church where he carried our healings at Ffynnon, Llandennis now on the current Llandennis Road, Oval.

 

Just before the Second World War, Dr. Harold Coulthard established a surgery in his house in Heathwood Road and in 1948 took as his partner Dr. Robert Griffiths. In 1958, the practice had expanded and a partnership was offered to their then trainee Dr. Gethyn Thomas. In 1964, Dr. Coulthard unfortunately died and the remaining partners moved across the road to 178 Heathwood Road.

In 1967, Dr. Michael Watson joined the practice.

In 1967, the practice introduced an appointment system and in 1968 the first practice nurse joined the practice.

In 1979, Dr. Griffiths retired and was replaced by Dr. John Rogers who left the practice in 1985.

In 1985, Dr. Hywel Smith joined the practice and in 1987 the practice moved to the new purpose-built premises in St. Isan Road.

In 1989, Dr. Thomas retired and Dr. Noel McLoughlin joined the practice.

In 1998, the practice premises were considerably enlarged.

In 2006, Dr. Watson retired and has been replaced by Drs. Melanie Bagshaw and Bethan Brooks.

In 2017, Dr Hywel Smith retired and Dr Iwan Williams joined the partnership.

In 2021, Dr Iwan Williams left the Partnership to move to North Wales. Dr. Matthew Jones joined the practice.

More information can be found on our practice website www.stisanroadsurgery.co.uk

Other information is available on the practice notice boards and display tables in the waiting areas.

 

What we spend and how we spend it

• St Isan Road Surgery receives money from NHS Wales according to its contract for national General Medical Services in exchange for services provided for patients.
• There may be circumstances where material cannot be released because it is confidential or commercial information or the appropriate officer designated for these purposes, under the Act, has taken the view that it may be prejudicial to the conduct of the Practice’s affairs.

If this is the case, we will respond to your FOI request with a formal letter acknowledging the reasons why we are unable to give you this information.We do not wish to publish our annual salaries, but they are available on request.

 

What our priorities are and how we are doing

Our current priorities are maintaining our excellent health service for our patients whilst balancing a sustainability crisis within primary care.  We work very closely with the other practices in our collaborative to find new ways of delivering services across our 10 practices.

We were last inspected by Health Inspectorate Wales on the 9^th November 2021 and the report can be found here: 20211109StIsanRoadSurgery-EN.pdf (hiw.org.uk)

How we make decisions

St Isan Road Surgery has a committee that is made up of the senior partners and management.

The Committee meets every month at a minimum. Copies of redacted minutes are available on request.

 

Our Policies and Procedures

 Our Policies and Procedures

General policies and procedures in use within the practice include, but are not limited to:

• Data Protection
• Prescribing
• Zero Tolerance

All policies and procedures are available for viewing, upon request in writing, please contact the Practice enquiries.w97053@wales.nhs.uk

If you have a complaint or concerns about the service you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working in this practice, please let us know. We operate a complaints procedure as part of the NHS system. Our complaints system meets national criteria.

A copy of our practice complaints procedure is available here www.stisanroadsurgery.co.uk This will give you all the information and contact details needed to lodge a complaint.

  

Lists and Registers

None

The services we offer

EXAMPLE

• In addition to routine and emergency services, we offer the following range of services under contract to the NHS:

 

• Contraceptive Services
• Minor Surgery
• Shared Care Prescribing
• Gender Services

 

• Charges for our private services (including medical reports and travel vaccinations) are published on our website, this information be accessed via the stisanroadsurgery.co.uk under the services section.

 Additional - Disclosure Log

A disclosure log is maintained to publish any previous FOI requests and the responses to these.   

The method by which information published under this scheme will be made available

The practice will indicate clearly to the public what information is covered by this scheme and how it can be obtained.

Where it is within the capability of the practice, information will be provided on the website. Where it is impracticable to make information available on a website or when an individual does not wish to access the information by the website, the practice will assist to provide the information in the format it has been requested or offer an alternative method for it to be obtained.

Charges which may be made for information published under this scheme

The purpose of this scheme is to make the maximum amount of information readily available at minimum inconvenience and cost to the public. Charges made by the practice for routinely published material will be justified and transparent and kept to a minimum. Material which is published and accessed on a website will be provided free of charge.

Generally, only the following charges can be made:

• the costs directly incurred as a result of viewing information, photocopying, postage and packaging
• fees permitted by other legislation; and
• for information produced commercially, for example, a book, map or similar publication that you intend to sell and would not otherwise have produced.