Spring 2016 Newsletter
Hot off the Press!
- 76% of our patients would be highly likely or likely to recommend our Practice to Friends and Family.
- Thank you for this positive feedback and to all the patients who completed the Family and Friends test last year.
Welcome!
Welcome to our relaunched quarterly newsletter. Throughout the year we hope to provide you with timely information about our services, health campaigns, Practice updates and general information that will hopefully be of interest to you. To ensure we are keeping cost to a minimum, the newsletter will be posted here on our website with a small number of hard copies available in our Reception.
We value our patient’s feedback and June sees the launch of our Practice Suggestion leaflet giving you the opportunity to express your thoughts about what we do well and any ideas you have for changes, improvements, or things you may wish to see in future newsletters! This is in addition to the NHS Family and Friends Test that you are all welcome to participate in. Both items will be available in the waiting room and will be reviewed every month. I look forward to your ideas and contributions.
Glynis Croxon-Jones Practice Manager
Electronic Prescriptions
70% of our patients have now signed up for the Electronic Prescription service. This enables your GP to send your prescription electronically to the pharmacy of your choice. It is an ideal method to use if you on repeat medications and eliminates the need to wait in any queues at Reception to pick up paper prescriptions. If you haven’t signed up yet, please see a member of our Reception team who will be happy to help.
Practice Team Update
We say a warm hello to Dr Andrew Egopija who joins us as a new GP Partner. Dr Egopija worked as a Registrar with us some years ago, so may be a familiar face to some of you. He will be running clinics on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
We also say a sad goodbye to our GP Registrar Dr Satty Randhawa. Dr Randhawa has been an excellent member of the Kingsbridge Team and will be missed by us all.
Two new starters have also recently joined our Reception team. Julie and Cheryl are looking forward to working with our patients to provide a friendly and efficient service. Finally we have several students with us over the May to July period and your support is appreciated in helping them develop their consulting skills.
Travel Clinics
It’s that time of year again when our thoughts turn to holidays! Please remember that if you are travelling overseas you may need advice and guidance on travel immunisations.
Our Practice Nurses run travel clinics at regular intervals. We do need some information from you prior to attending a clinic, so please make an appointment well in advance of your holi
day to ensure the appropriate forms can be completed in time. General travel information and advice can for all countries be obtained from: www.gov.uk/foreigntravel-advice
Online access
Did you know that we offer a service to enable you to book appointments online, order repeat prescriptions and view summary information about your medical records? This includes hospital letters and results. The service also provides you with a facility to send simple messages to our Administration Team. This can save both you and the Practice time in managing your healthcare.
For further information please visit our online access page or speak to one of our Receptionists.
Hayfever Advice
Sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes—just a few of the common symptoms of hayfever. This allergic reaction to pollen affects is estimated to affect over 10 million of us every year. So what can you do to treat the symptoms? The most effective way is to avoid pollen whenever possible and stay indoors when the pollen count is high. Protect your eyes with wraparound sunglasses to create a pollen barrier and use Vaseline in the nasal cavities to trap pollen. Your Pharmacist is the first person to speak to you if you think you may need antihistamines to alleviate your symptoms. Several types are available over the counter and nasal sprays and eye drops may also help. Protecting your children using the same methods is also important and antihistamine in liquid format for children is available.
If these methods do not help and your symptoms then this is the time to consult your GP. Further advice can be found on the NHS choices website at nhs.co.uk
Protecting your child in the sun
Encourage play in the shade especially between 11am & 3pm when the sun is at its peak. Keep babies under 6 months out of direct sunlight . Regularly apply a high factor sunscreen that protects against UVA and UVB rays to all exposed areas of your child’s skin, face and neck, even on cloudy days. Remember to reapply after swimming.
Pop on a wide brimmed hat, loose cotton clothing for example an oversized T -shirt and sunglasses that meet British Safety Standard (BSEN 1836:2005) and carry the “CE” mark
Manage Your Health App
This mobile app has been developed to by Keele University, University Hospital North Midlands (UHMN) and Stoke-on-Trent Clinical Commissioning Group to help patients with Asthma, COPD, Diabetes and back pain to manage their conditions. Using a combination of computer graphics, interactive quizzes and information resources, it is a valuable tool for patients and their GPs.
Download it today from Google Play, Apple and Amazon app stores and see if it can help you!
Further information about technology that can help you manage your health can be viewed at www.digitalhealths ot.nhs.uk
Pharmacy First!
Your local pharmacist can provide help, advice and dispense medication for a wide range of ailments. We advise our patients to consult with their pharmacist first for common problems as a GP appointment is not always necessary to treat them.
Minor Illness Clinics
Sister Davenport is a Nurse Prescriber and runs regular minor illness clinics every week. These are in addition to our GP clinics and provide patients with an alternative to seeing a GP for common problems such as coughs, colds and infections. You may be asked to provide some basic information about your condition when you call for an appointment to enable us to signpost you to the most appropriate clinic.
Appointments
We appreciate that the winter period has been difficult for many of our patients trying to obtain convenient appointments. In November and December 2015, two of our GP Partners, Dr Merron and Dr Mohideen both left the Practice at short notice. This created a shortfall in available appointments. Combined with this we were running additional clinics for flu appointments and experiencing the annual increase in demand for the winter period. As you will be aware from the media, demand on GP practices is soaring and we are experiencing continually high levels of demand for our services. Each week some GP clinic sessions are “held back” to ensure that we have on the day appointments available for patients and, although we have a single telephone number, there are 3 phone lines fully staffed every day enabling us to answer calls to 3 patients at a time as promptly as possible. The Practice has recently secured 2 additional Registrars who will be with us until the summer and in addition, Dr Andrew Egopija has joined the Practice. This should enable us to offer more routine and on the day appointments to our patients to improve our service to you.