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Important Practice Information

23rd November 2021

Dear Patients

The Blandford Group Practice have been holding Saturday clinics to deliver the covid booster programme since early October 2021. During this time the programme has been delivered from the Whitecliff Surgery site and staffed using the Practice workforce. We have also been heavily supported by the local Rotary Club and a handful of external vaccinators.

It has become apparent that it is unsustainable for us to continue providing this weekend service, as we need to give our staff a break and have the opportunity to carry out desperately needed maintenance work on the premises.

Therefore, Saturday 18^th December 2021 will be our final weekend covid booster clinic. The clinics scheduled between now and then are fully booked. We would strongly encourage patients who still need to have their covid booster access the National Booking Service and book to have their covid booster at an alternative site.

We are working closely with Dorset Healthcare and NHS Dorset in the hope to find an alternative location for the covid booster programme to be delivered locally during the working week, although we can not promise this will be possible.

The Practice will continue to deliver the flu campaign in the New Year and will inform patients of the dates for these clinics as and when they are available. We would request that you don’t call the Practice to enquire about an appointment. We will be working through the list of remaining eligible patients and contact them via telephone or email to book an appointment in due course.

Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

The Team

The Blandford Group Practice

18th November 2021

On The Day Urgent Appointment Update

Dear Patients

We are pleased to announce we will be trialling a new system for on the day urgent appointments with effect from Monday 22^nd November 2021.

From Monday if you require an on the day urgent appointment our Patient Services Team will be asking patients a serious of questions, such as a brief description of your symptoms and whether you have any covid-19 symptoms, to ensure you are seen by the most appropriate clinician on the day. These questions have been curated by our GP Team and the Patient Services Team have received full training in how to best signpost our patients.

If you are assessed as being suitable for an on the day urgent appointment you will be booked with the most appropriate clinician available, which could be a GP, Nurse Practitioner, Paramedic, or First Contact Physio.

All patients will be given the opportunity to chose whether they would prefer a telephone consultation or a face to face appointment with the clinician. The face to face on the day urgent appointments will be at Eagle House Surgery.

Patients assessed as being a “Hot” patient, with potential covid-19 symptoms, who request a face to face appointment will be asked to wait in the car park and call the Patient Services Team using the telephone number provided at the time of making your appointment.

Patients assessed as “Cold” patients, with no covid-19 symptoms, who request a face to face appointment should check in at the Eagle House reception desk and wait in the waiting room. We would ask that patients attend their appointments on time to reduce over crowding in the waiting room. If the waiting room becomes over crowded some patients may be asked to wait outside until there is sufficient space.

In introducing this new system we will be offering over 80 additional appointments to our patients daily. Once these on the day urgent appointments have been utilised patients who deem their symptoms to be urgent will be assessed on a case by case basis by the Duty GP. Some patients may be asked to call back the following day. We would request if you are one of those patients that you are kind to our Patient Services Team who will be informing you of this decision. Please be assured all clinical decisions will be made by a clinician and not the Patient Services Team.

We are aware, as with any new system, there will be “tweaks” needed along the way and ask for your patience and understanding while we trial this new system, which will hopefully improve access for all patients.

The Practice would very much invite patients to provide constructive feedback to this new system once it is up and running if they so wish.

Once this on the day urgent appointment system has been trialled and successfully bedded in we will be looking at ways to improve the routine appointment system.

The Team

The Blandford Group Practice

25th October 2021

You may have received a text from us recently asking if you are confident using technology. Please note this is NOT a scam.

Appointment Update

Please be aware we are currently booking appointments two to three weeks ahead of time. If you need to book an appointment further ahead than this, please ring nearer the time. Thank you.

Please see this link to advice of the blood bottle shortage - https://www.dorsetccg.nhs.uk/equipment-shortage/

Staff Training

All sites will be closed from 3.30 - 6.30pm on the 27th January 2022 for staff training. For anything urgent, please call 111. In an emergency, call 999.

Online Services

Click here to log into Online Services which includes your medical record.

Please choose the right healthcare service in Dorset

NHS services in Dorset continue to be under extreme pressure.

If you’re unwell and are unsure about where to go, visit 111.nhs.uk or call 111. Please be patient and choose the right care. Get the right treatment, in the right place, at the right time.

At this very busy time, your 111 call may take a little longer to answer than usual but staff will get to you as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.

For ongoing or non-urgent concerns please contact your local pharmacist or GP practice.

Call 999 in a medical emergency. This is when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk.

Thank you for your support.

We’d also like to thank our hard-working teams who are working incredibly hard to care for those in need.

Useful Numbers & Websites

24/7 mental health support line (Connections) - 0800 652 0190

Blandford Hospital - 01258 456541

Boots Pharmacy (East Street) - 01258 452619

Boots Pharmacy (Salisbury Street) - 01258 452824

MIU - 01202 856436 (Wimborne) & 01747 475251 (Shaftesbury)

Urgent eye problems - 0800 112 0070

Steps to Wellbeing - https://www.steps2wellbeing.co.uk/

NHS.uk - https://www.nhs.uk/

Healthier Together - https://what0-18.nhs.uk/

MSK Dorset - https://www.mskdorset.nhs.uk/

New text messaging service to support parents and carers

Parents and carers of children aged five or under in Dorset can now access support via ParentLine – a brand new confidential text messaging service.

The service is provided by Dorset HealthCare’s Health Visiting team and will help parents and carers who need guidance about a child’s health and development.

Advice will be available about a range of topics, such as breastfeeding, bottle feeding, weaning, sleep, toileting, minor illness, behaviour and parenting by simply texting 07312 277162.

Parents and carers can seek advice via ParentLine from 9am - 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays), with a practitioner responding to messages within one working day. If a text is sent outside these hours the parent or carer will receive an automated message with advice on where to get help if they require it urgently.

ParentLine is not an emergency service. For urgent medical attention please contact your GP, NHS 111 or 999.

Patient Access

As we are still in the Covid pandemic, the NHS recommends that we triage or phone back every patient who wants advice from a nurse, doctor or other healthcare professional.

If you need medical advice or treatment, please call us on 01258 452501 or visit our website www.theblandfordgrouppractice.co.uk.

We ask many of the patients we have telephoned, to then come to the surgery for a face-to-face appointment, but due to infection control measures and social distancing, we can only let patients into the surgery if they have a planned appointment.

We are keen, as we are sure you are too, to avoid transmission of infection and so to ensure social distancing we are closely monitoring how many patients are in our building including sitting in the waiting room. We need to take more precautions than shops etc due to the vulnerability of some of our patients.

We know that some of these measures are frustrating for you as they are for us. We are facing unprecedented demands with a huge increase in the number of calls we are receiving and the need for us all to catch up with the monitoring of patients which was not possible in the height of the pandemic.

We all look forward to lockdown measures continuing to ease but in the meantime, many thanks for your patience and understanding.

Thank you.

Dispensary Update

During this pandemic a home delivery service will be provided to our dispensing patients who housebound.

For more information please call the surgery and ask to speak to the dispensary.

Online/Internet Pharmacies

To all our patients who have nominated an online or Internet pharmacy. We advise that you order your repeat prescription yourself rather than relying on a third party to do this. Due to the current demand on their services sometimes the requests are not coming through to us and therefore your prescription is not being processed and sent to your nominated pharmacy.

Calling all Dispensing Patients – Your Dispensary Needs You

The profits from our Dispensary help fund vital services at the Practice including additional phlebotomy appointments, additional clinical staff and free dosette boxes.

If you are eligible to use the Dispensary we ask you bear this in mind when making the decision as to where you collect your prescriptions from. Unfortunately, due to NHSE rules we are restricted in who we can dispense medication to. To check that you live more than a mile from a pharmacy please see the NHS choices website. For more advice or information please contact the dispensary team.

Without your demand we wouldn’t be able to keep the Dispensary open and every time you use us you are helping to keep the additional services above running.

Thank you for your support

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