Update for Patients

Posted by: siteadmin - Posted on:

  1. COVID vaccinations
  2. Accessing your GP
  3. Healthcare premises after “freedom day” – our duty of care to staff and other patients
  4. Face to face appointments
  5. Prescription requests & referrals
  6. Our telephone lines
  7. Private medicals and forms  (Non NHS work)
  8. Early news regarding seasonal flu and COVID boosters.
  1. COVID vaccinations – All eligible patients over 18 years old should have received an invite for your first COVID vaccinations. We are still calling patients for their second vaccines and this is generally around 8 – 10 weeks later.     If you think you have missed your vaccine or declined to have a vaccination and would now like one then please contact us by visiting www.newforestpcn.co.uk and click on the COVID button. There is a form you can complete to request an invitation for a first (or second) dose.
  2. The practice offers a variety of appointments – pre bookable telephone consultation, on the day triage consultation, e-consult as well as our usual nursing and screening appointments.  Your clinician will book you into a face to face appointment should they feel this is appropriate.

The pandemic has been extended to the end of September, 2021 as we have seen an increased amount of positive COVID cases in our immediate area and we continue to put the wellbeing of our patients and staff first.    

Please do not attend if you have any COVID symptoms such as cough, high temperature (37.8C or above)or changes in taste or smell.

  • Our staff will continue social distancing, stringent handwashing and the wearing of face masks. We ask our patients to kindly do the same to keep us all safe.  Unlike shops and restaurants the majority of our patients attending the surgery are here due to health concerns and therefore are at an increased risk of contracting COVID .  Similarly we do not want to increase staff absences by increased isolation numbers or COVID infections as these impacts on our service, opening hours and response time to our patients.
  • The practice will not be moving to all face to face appointment as our current face to face appointments are longer due to infection control cleaning and change of PPE between patients.   We are closely monitoring the current situation regarding infection rates, local and national guidance and will keep our patients up to date.  
  • Repeat prescriptions and referral to further care are actioned within two working days.  If your prescription is new medication or not on repeat then please allow extra time as the administrative staff cannot process this for you.  
  • Our telephone lines continue to be extremely busy and I know this can be frustrating to patients.  However, we do have additional members of the team answering at busy times and our response time should be no more than 10 minutes.  Today whilst writing this (Monday lunchtime) we have already received over 300 calls and our service level response is 97%.  We continue to do our best and thank you for your continued patience with our busy team.
  • Our NHS work and unwell patients has always been our priority and will continue to be the case.  We do understand that some patients may wish to travel and continue extreme sports and challenges after such a difficult year.  However, please allow at least 2 weeks for completion and be aware there will be a standard charge for completion of medical/reports.   We have to prioritise clinical and NHS work, we respectfully ask that you do not chase our staff who are extremely busy. Thank you for your understanding.
  • We have been asked by NHS England to start some early planning for the seasonal Flu vaccine programme and Phase 3 of the COVID vaccination. Programme. We will provide you with more details as soon as we have them, so please make sure you keep checking our website and ensure we have your correct mobile number and / or e mail address. 

I do hope this update is helpful and again thank our patients for their continued understanding.

Jan Lamont,

Practice Manager, Wistaria & Milford Surgeries