Patient Social Media Policy

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Gillingham Medical Practice welcomes comments and suggestions from their patients and these can be submitted via our website or in writing to the Practice Manager.

We ask that patients do not use a Social Media site such as Facebook to comment on the Practice and members of the surgery staff.

If you have any feedback about our service we encourage you to report this to the practice through the website. The practice always investigates and responds to complaints.

We reserve the right to remove a patient from the surgery list and report them to the social networking site if they are found to have made libellous statements or defamatory comments about the surgery or a member of the surgery staff.

The legal definition of defamation is:

“any intentionally false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a persons reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.”

You would not expect to read derogatory comments about yourself online and neither do we.

Ethical Social Networking

The GMC’s guidance, Doctors’ use of social media states that social media sites should never be used to discuss individual patients or their care. If a GP is contacted by a patient through their private profile for medical advice the patient will be asked to direct their query to the surgery.