TELEPHONE ISSUES – 23.11.20

Please be aware that we are having trouble with our telephone system, causing our phone lines to completely drop and at times not allowing calls to come through. Our provider is currently on site fixing this issue. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

CHANGES TO HOW WE ARE WORKING

PLEASE DO NOT COME TO THE SURGERY UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED TO ATTEND.

We kindly ask that all patients attending the surgery wear a face mask in line with government guidance.

The surgery continues to offer face to face services for those instances when they are essential e.g. when the clinician needs to physically examine you.

We have replaced our walk-in urgent care clinic with a new system where medically urgent problems are triaged carefully by telephone by our team.  This means we will always ask you for an outline of the problem, so we can help you best. Sometimes this could mean directing you to another service not based at the practice such as Physiotherapy, Positive Minds, Pharmacy, Optician or Dentist. This service runs twice a day but has a limited capacity based on clinical need.

We will continue to use SMS messages to help patients send in photos which has proved very popular in the pandemic. We also encourage use of eConsult for all routine issues, be they medical, prescription related or administrative. If you don’t have access to a computer or smart phone, which is a requirement for the use of eConsult,  the reception team can collect details of your problem in a similar way over the phone.  GPs will still have telephone slots to follow up issues, and you will still have a usual doctor at the surgery to encourage continuity of care.

Many standard nursing team appointments remain as usual, i.e. regular injections and dressings, also essential bloods. If in doubt at all, please call the surgery and we will be happy to help.

We cannot deal with prescription requests over the telephone, please use the NHS App, practice website or contact your pharmacy. Please do not email your requests, but sign up to Systmone Online Services. Please see the link below to sign up.

Thank you for your understanding of the changes we have made in response to the coronavirus pandemic. We continue to strive to improve our care to our patients and remain a friendly and efficient practice for our patients.