Burdwood Surgery Latest Information

Burdwood Surgery Latest Information Thank you for taking the time to read this update. We thought we would try and write to you all to let you know what is happening at the moment with the Surgery.

Dr Harris Dr Paul Harris retired on 16th November 2016. Patients who were seeing Dr Harris have been moved to Dr Liz Field and Dr Xanthe Phillips lists. As always patients are registered with Burdwood Surgery but have an allocated usual Doctor – if you are unsure who your usual GP is please ask at reception.

NHS Funding You must all be aware that the NHS is short of funding but in particular it has affected our surgery by a cut in our PMS (Primary Medical Services) contract of 20% from this year. We have been working hard to try and address this shortfall and for the next year hope to provide a service that is unaffected but cannot predict beyond that at this stage. Come along to our PPG meetings for more information.

Increased Population Our population has increased significantly over the last few years and we are at capacity so any increases in the population will need to be addressed. We are discussing these issues with fellow practices and our CCG (Newbury and District Clinical Commissioning Group).

GP Training We have a strong tradition of training doctors to become GPs here and now have increased our capacity with Dr Bal Bahia and Dr Pete Osborne both taking on Registrars. Currently we have Dr Helen Clarke with us until February and Dr Natalie Colborne with us until July. In addition to GP registrars we will also be working with medical students from Southampton University so you may come across them. As always if you would prefer not to be seen by anyone in training please let reception know.

Right Person in Practice Since 2004 (New GP contract) we have worked towards providing a range of clinicians to provide a skill mix to ensure that patients see the right person for the right thing. This means that we need to ask you more information so that we can offer you the correct appointment. Please help us to help you by providing us with that information. We have routine GP and Nurse appointments that should be available up to 6 weeks in advance. On the day appointments that are released at 8am for the morning and 11:30am for the afternoon. Urgent appointments are available if you feel you must be seen that day, these cannot be specified by a particular Doctor or time. Urgent appointments cannot be offered if we have routine appointments available. If you need information regarding your medication or a referral, you can book a phone call with our prescription team or secretary.

Nurse Practitioner Our Nurse Practitioner runs a minor illness clinic 3 times a week and can prescribe for a wide range of minor ailments. She cannot see children under the age of 2.

Right Service To save both you and us time it is important that you are receiving the correct service. An effective way of doing this is by either using the NHS symptom checker or by calling 111 for non-emergencies. For immediate life-threatening emergencies, always call 999.

NHS Choices One way you can help us to help you is to check if you need to be seen. NHS choices have a symptom checker and you can also call 111 to get advice. If you are unsure try them first.

Online Services There are a number of different online services that we provide. You are able to book your appointments via the website, set SMS reminder, request electronic prescriptions and view your medical notes online. The portal is called Patient Services, pick up a form from reception or from our website now.

Phlebotomy We have recently recruited 3 new phlebotomists, Yvonne Barton, Olivia Sly and Karen Walker. Once they have completed their training they will be taking blood clinics so we should be able to offer more appointments. In the meantime you may find it more difficult to have a blood test appointment and may prefer to use the community hospital. You can contact them on 01635 273343 or alternatively book online at https://wbch.sangix.co.uk

Healthcare Assistants (HCA’s) Our Healthcare Assistants run clinics and are able to see you for blood tests, spirometry (lung function), hypertension (BP), health checks and care planning appointments for COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and diabetes.

Extended Access Part of the National Strategy is to increase opening hours to a 7 day working week. Our PPG has continuously stressed that they are happy with our current system of opening 2 Saturdays a month. This may change in the future but currently the plans are to continue with this until the end of March 2017. These appointments are available to book online.

One additional service we are providing are extended access telephone slots, and these are available every day, one day a week they are early morning and 3 days a week they are after 6:30pm. The aim of these slots is to provide a telephone consultation at a fixed time for you – particularly if you are working or find it difficult to speak during the day.

The extended access telephone calls are in addition to our routine telephone appointments we provide every day which are a quick question to the GP or Nurse but may be answered at any point during the day. We do ask our receptionists to check which number is best to contact you on but please be aware that the surgery number comes as an unknown number and the GP cannot call back so please be available to take your call. We also ask our team to get a little bit of information from you so that we may deal with the call dependant on priority. It is always best to speak to the GP you have had contact with before so it might be best to wait until they are in the surgery, unless it is urgent far that day then the duty GP can deal with it.

PPG We are very lucky to have an active PPG (Patients Participation Group) and urge you to join in either in the face to face meetings or online as part of the virtual group. Have your say. To get involved you can sign up online at www.burdwoodsurgery.nhs.uk or contact us at [email protected].

Self-Monitoring We are encouraging patients who take their own blood pressure to record their readings and share them with us to assist with hypertension monitoring.