Healthy Living – NHS health Checks for 40 – 74 years

It’s never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Our Practice Nurse Claire Ormrod and our Health Care Support worker Lena will be offering NHS health Checks to people aged between 40 – 74 once every five years. These checks are to assess your risk of developing heart disease, strokes, kidney disease or diabetes. If there are any warning signs, then together we can do something about it. There is good evidence that by taking early action, you can improve your health and prevent the onset of these conditions. Following the check, you will receive free personalised advice where appropriate about what you can do to stay healthy. Letter will be coming out to those that are eligible over the next few weeks. Please if you do receive a letter contact reception who can provide you with an appointment.

Prescription Ordering

Following a detailed review of our prescription ordering service and discussions with our Patient participation group we are to introduce a change to our repeat prescription ordering service. In line with most other practices, we will cease to take repeat prescription requests over the telephone. These changes will not be introduced until the autumn, to enable us to support and advise those patients that will find this change difficult. The aim is to reduce errors made when requesting orders over the phone and to free up the already busy phone lines for appointments and enquiries. We fully understand that this may be an issue for some patients and we promise to provide as much help as is possible to address these issues. There are several alternative systems to request your prescription.

• Hand Deliver your request
• Order online – see reception if you have not already registered
• Utilise the pharmacy services – who will collect and even deliver
• Post the request to us with a stamped address envelope

Leaflets with more information about the changes will be handed out with prescriptions over the next few months, alternatively please ask at reception.

Seasonal flu vaccination programme

We will be holding our seasonal flu vaccination clinics in October and November as shown below. Please contact the surgery for details and to make an appointment. To qualify for a free flu vaccination you must be over 65 years of age (dob on or before 31.3.1947) or in the following risk groups:

RING US NOW AND BOOK AN APPOINTMENT:

SATURDAY 1ST OCTOBER 9-2PM

SATURDAY 15TH OCTOBER 9-2PM

SATURDAY 5TH NOVEMBER 9-2PM

If you do not wish to have your flu vaccination it is important that you contact us and advise that you wish to DECLINE. We will make a note on your records and will not keep sending you reminders. This will save costs and also both your time and ours.

Patients Participation Group News

We are pleased give you the latest update from your Patient Participation Group.
Firstly just to remind you who we are, we are people like yourselves who have chosen to join with the practice in order to provide an accessible and responsive service.

We are continuing with our aims to set up a Virtual Patient Group site which will enable those of you with a computer to have input into future decisions made about patient health care and wellbeing. If you are interested you can access our page by returning to the main site and follow the link to the patients group from the left menu. You will then see a leaflet which tells you more about what we are hoping to achieve. You can also complete an Application Form so that you can join us. This Form can be electronically completed and sent to the practice. Or you can copy it and hand it in at Reception.

There are of course of number of Patients of our Practice who do not have access to a Computer and as we do not wish to disenfranchise them we will make sure that there are leaflets and posters in reception which will give them an opportunity to become involved. The advantages in both these methods of contact, are that you decide when you want to answer questions; you are completely in control and if you receive something which does not interest you then take no action. Also if after a little while you decide this is not for you, just tell us, we will then delete your name from our contact list and you will not be bothered again.

You will probably be interested to know what we have been doing to date. Well, we refresh the Notice Boards on a regular basis. These are intended to give you information you might need. The Blue Kiosk in Reception is also for this purpose. We do hope you will feel you can use this. Please do not hesitate to ask if you are unsure.

We prepared the Patient Survey which some of you were asked to complete and we then collated the answers so that the Practice could produce the statistics which are vital when they are deciding on future changes and improvements. The results of this can be seen lower down.

We continue to be an active member of the Cluster Group which covers the five Practices in the Leek and Werrington Area and it is through this group that we have forced a review of the Podiatry Service. This consultation is ongoing.

You may or may not have noticed but there are now yellow purse/pocket sized cards in Reception which give you a list of useful telephone numbers. They were designed and prepared by us following an approach from a patient. Please take one the next time you are in the surgery.

Finally, have you recently tried to get an appointment and been frustrated when this is not possible or you have had to wait longer then expected. Well did you know that 257 appointments have been missed in the past three months, which equals 43 lost hours? If patients would just please let the practice know if they cannot attend, then those hours can be reallocated and everyone will benefit.

From the members of your PPG.

Patient survey results April 2010 – March 2011

I am very pleased to announce that overall the results of the survey conducted in October 2010 were very positive. I would like to personally thank our PPG members who helped the practice to try and improve our questionnaires, to enable us to make sure we were asking the kind of questions that we needed to ask.
Areas of the survey that we received the highest ratings for were the following:-

• 98% of the patients found our receptionists polite and helpful
• If you need to be seen urgently on the same day this happens
• 84% satisfied with booking in advance to see a doctor
• Satisfied with how thorough the doctor asked about your symptoms
• Satisfied with how well the doctor listened to what you had to say
• Highly satisfied with how well the doctor involved you in the decision about your care

Areas of the survey that we received the lowest ratings for were the following:-

• Speaking to a GP or Practitioner on the telephone
• Some concerns around the length of time waiting in the waiting room to see doctor
• How quickly do you usually get to see your usual doctor

As part of our commitment to continue to provide a high standard of care to our patients and as part of the process of the annual patient survey, the practice will compile an action plan of how we can improve our services for patients.
Review our waiting times within the waiting room to see if this can be improved.
Speaking to the GP or a practitioner on the telephone is a service that has always been available and is advertised and highlighted within the practice by leaflet, website and envisage – discuss with the PPG on how we can improve the advertising of this service.
Booking in systems – not all patients sure how to use this system – review how we do this and educate patients on how to use this system.
Opening Hours- The practice offers weekend opening – from the survey results late evenings is a service that patients would like to see. – Practice to review against the national patient survey.
Booking appointments and ordering prescriptions via the internet – 55% of patients that completed the questionnaire were not registered for either service – Practice to review how we advertise and promote this service with the PPG members.
Information Kiosk – 59% of patients that completed the questionnaire were not aware that the blue information kiosk gave a range of useful medical information – Practice to review how we advertise and promote this service with the PPG members.
Access to the Practice website – 90% of the patients that completed the questionnaire did not know or had never accessed the website. Practice to review how we advertise and promote this service with the PPG members