Terms of Use

BMP MEDICAL T/A AKEA LIFE and our members/patients agree to the following terms and conditions:

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

AKEA LIFE is a private General Practitioner and Medical Doctor practice offering a 7 day a week on-call GP service that includes telephone triage and face to face consultations. We can also offer chronic disease management, health checks, vaccinations. We can also arrange other treatments such as mental health services, physio, surgery, consultant consultations and much more. We offer a detailed and personalised approach to your health with no time constraints or limits on what can be discussed during our consultations. HOWEVER AKEA Life is NOT an emergency service and, for any condition that is a medical emergency, 999 should ALWAYS be called.

MEMBERSHIP

Members of AKEA LIFE sign up for a minimum of 12 months. Patients must register and pay at least 48 hours before being able to access our full service, but we do not require them to de-register with their NHS GP. Your membership with us is inclusive of:

All standard GP telephone calls

All standard GP face to face visits

Access to our Health concierge team to help you make the most of your health care experience.

Please note we can make recommendations for best hospitals, consultants and treatments for our patients, however we cannot book appointments with other providers on our patients behalf.
Additional charges will be incurred for health requirements beyond this such as, management of long term chronic disease such as diabetes, specialist consultant appointments, vaccinations, diagnostics, therapy and blood tests. For more details on this please ask a member of the team. This can be discussed with us if needed.

CANCELLATION POLICY

Members may cancel their registration with AKEA LIFE within 7 days of registration or at any time after 12 months by notifying us in writing. AKEA LIFE reserves the right to cancel a patients membership at any time. A patient/member is liable for the full value of their contract over 12 months once registration is complete. After 12 months patients will be given the option to cancel or sign up for another 12 months. Please note that if cancelled within 7 days but a visit or call has been received, these will be billed at an individual cost of £75 for a telephone consultation and £350 for a visit.

TIMELINESS OF TREATMENT

As a company we aim to deliver a highly responsive service to our patients. Patients calls will be returned by our medical team as quickly as possible (usually inside 30 mins), however during busy times this can take longer. Visits will also be conducted as quickly as possible and prioritised based on urgency as so deemed by our triaging

doctor. 90% of our all visits are conducted the same day, however in some circumstances these may need to be done the next day. We would like to remind patients that we ARE NOT AN EMERGENCY SERVICE, if we feel your issues require urgent medical attention this advice needs to be adhered to. Please note also that not using the main AKEA LIFE doctors number can result in slowing down your of your treatment as different communication channels are not monitored at all times.

UNDER 18

All children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult to be seen or spoken to by an AKEA doctor.

WORKING WITH OTHER INVOLVED IN YOUR CARE

AKEA LIFE will work alongside our member’s NHS GP and complement their service as required. We can update your GP with any information deemed necessary for the safety of patients and the public. Our patients will remain registered with their NHS GP throughout the duration of their membership. We don’t always seek access to your previous medical records but we do encourage you to let us know any important health issues that you feel will help us manage your care more effectively, we also may deem it necessary to contact your NHS GP in relation to requests for certain medicines including controlled drugs and drugs of an addictive nature. For more information on this please ask a member of the AKEA team [email protected]

VISITATION AND FAIR USE

For family and Individual memberships we do not put any specific limits in place on use. However we expect patients to use us fairly and appropriately. Our average use per year is 2 contacts per member per annum. Where we feel use is excessive of this we reserve the right to charge for additional visits at £275 per visit. Patients will be made aware of this in advance.
We do reserve the right to cancel the membership of any patient or patients we feel are not using the AKEA LIFE team appropriately or if we feel patients are ignoring doctors advice, particularly when it comes to recommendations to use A&E.

COMPLAINTS

All Patients (or representatives of patients where appropriate) can make a complaint about our service either verbally or in writing. Ideally complaints should be in a written format and be addressed to [email protected] , all complaints will be logged and acknowledged in writing within 3 days. BMP Medical LTD T/A AKEA LIFE will aim to resolve all complaints in writing within 14 working days. Full details of our complaints policy and procedure can be requested by emailing [email protected]

PAYMENTS AND ADDITIONAL COSTS

AKEA LIFE registered patients are required to pay monthly in advance by direct debit. Or annually by bank payment or card payment Full details of our membership fees are available in our membership page on our website. Our service will commence when we are in possession of the payment and applicants order form or clients declare that they have made arrangements to pay directly with their bank. Included in

the monthly fee is unrestricted access to our services, whether telephone consultations or home visits. We do not charge for the writing of private prescriptions or referral letters. Additional fees WILL be incurred for privately dispensed medicine conducted laboratory tests, diagnostic tests or medical examinations for insurance purposes. A full list of prices can be found on our website. All clients will be informed of any additional costs before undertaking these services. Non-payment can result in AKEA not delivering our services as required. Payments for one-off visits must be made in advance of the visit taking place.

REFERRALS

Our service can refer you to other private providers. We can also write referrals letters for your private healthcare insurance. Most providers will accept this, however AKEA Life cannot guarantee your private insurance company will accept our referral. We will however do everything we can to ensure they do. AKEA Life cannot refer you directly on to an NHS service. As a non NHS provider we cannot access the choose and book system. However should you want or need to have further treatment on the NHS we can and will contact your GP surgery an ensure as best we can that they refer you based on our consultation. We cannot make private of NHS bookings on patients behalf due to GDPR.

REGULATION

AKEA LIFE is registered with the Care Quality Commission and complies with nationally agreed standards of care. AKEA LIFE complies with the principles and values on which good practice is founded, as laid down by the General Medical Council. Our doctors are fully registered with the General Medical Council and hold a valid licence to practice. AKEA LIFE doctors are subject to regular appraisal and adhere to the process of continuing medical education and revalidation as set out by the General Medical Council.

INDEMNITY

All of our doctors hold appropriate valid medical malpractice indemnity. AKEA LIFE also holds medical malpractice and holds public liability insurance, and further details are available on request. All of our third part providers will also be required to carry indemnity.

DATA PROTECTION

Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and adheres to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the data protection principles in relation to personal data. By becoming a member you agree to the processing of personal data to enable us to carry out work on your behalf. This includes the transfer if relevant medical information to third party providers who we use from time to time to help deliver the best healthcare to our patients. We will not disclose personal data to any other third party without member’s express consent, unless in a medical emergency where it may be deemed in the member’s best interest. In such cases, we stringently adhere to published General Medical Council guidance on the use of personal data. Under the Data Protection Act 1998, all members have the right to request details of their personal data held by us;
a fee may be chargeable. All clinical records are fully encrypted and stored on secure servers conforming to or exceeding current NHS requirements for data storage.