News and Information

Patient Participation Group

The next meeting of our group is on Monday 19th March 2012 for 6.00 pm at the Surgery. For more information please contact Mrs Askew or Mrs Clayton at the Surgery.

HOME VISITS

The Doctor will visit in cases of emergency or infirmity. Whenever possible, please let us know of your need for a visit between 8.30am and 10.00am on the same day.

LATE ARRIVALS

If you are 10 minutes or more late for your booked appointment the clinician may not be able to see you. Our appointments are usually booked at 10 minute intervals, which means there will be another patient already booked in and waiting to see the clinician.

OUT OF HOURS SERVICES

On weekdays between the hours of 6.30pm and 8.00am and all day and night at the weekends and on bank holidays, services are commissioned by Cambridgeshire PCT.
If you require medical treatment you have a choice.
If you wish to see an emergency doctor phone 01945 476999
If you require health information or advice, you may phone NHS Direct a 24 hour nurse-led advice line on 08454647
A recorded telephone message gives the emergency telephone number when the surgery is closed

REPEAT PRESCRIPTIONS

Patients on regular medication will require repeat prescriptions; for a safer and speedier service, repeat prescriptions are now computerised. Your doctor will have entered on the computer what medication you are taking and each time a new
prescription is written by the computer, a new request form is also generated for you to make your next request. Our legal obligations make us unable to accept requests for repeat prescriptions over the telephone.
Please allow 48 hours for your prescription to be processed. If you are collecting your prescription from a chemist, please allow one extra day after the 48 hours, for the chemist to collect and process your prescription.
Please either deliver or post your repeat prescription form to the surgery.
If you are unable to get to the surgery to collect your prescriptions, you can either:
Arrange with the receptionist to have your prescriptions collected and made up at a designated chemist or: we can return the prescription to you through the post if you enclose a stamped addressed envelope.
Please note that HRT and contraceptive pill prescriptions are not issued as repeat medication.
Prescription Charges—People in the following categories are automatically exempt from prescription charges: Children under 16; under 19 who are in full-time education; people over 60 years of age; pregnant women and women who have had a baby in the last 12 months; people getting DHSS benefits and people with special medical conditions.
Season Tickets—It is sometimes worthwhile to buy a season ticket for pre-payment of prescription charges. A prescription charge (April 2011) is £7.40 per item. Season tickets are currently £29.10 for three months and £104 for one year. This means that when using a season ticket, once 4 or more items have been dispensed in 3 months or 14 items have been dispensed in 12 months a saving has been made. £104 may sound like a lot, but works out at £2.00 per week for all your prescriptions! Compared to the actual cost of medication this represents excellent value.

TEST RESULTS

Where patients are advised to contact the Surgery for test results, this should be done between 2.00pm and 5.00pm when staff will have more time to respond. Please note this information is treated in strict confidence, even between husband and wife and staff should not be asked to divulge results other than to the patient specified.

SICKNESS CERTIFICATES

You do not require a doctor’s certificate for any illness lasting seven days or less. Your employer may however require you to complete a self-certification (form SC2) which is available from your employer. For any illness lasting longer than seven days you will need to see the Doctor for him to issue a sickness certificate (MED3) and for any subsequent renewal of the certificate.

CARER’S SUPPORT

If you are an looking after a friend, relative or partner who is frail or ill and you would like the doctor to know that you are a carer. Please inform reception

 VIOLENT PATIENTS—ZERO TOLERANCE

The NHS operates a Zero Tolerance Policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons.Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we are obliged to notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and circumstances leading to it. The PCT is then responsible for providing further medical care for such patients.