The Castle Practice Newsletter (May 2004)

Newsletter May 2004

Saturday Morning Surgeries and Out-of-Hours Care

Due to the new GP contract, as from 5^th June, The Castle Practice will no longer be open on a Saturday morning. Instead, emergency problems will be dealt with by WILCODOC, the out-of-hours service based in Amesbury. As with other times (6pm-8am weekdays and 11am Saturday to 8am Monday), patients will need to phone Amesbury (01980) 626226 where they will be able to speak to a nurse or a doctor and either given advice, seen in Amesbury or, if necessary, visited at home.

Therefore, the Practice will be closed for routine work from 6pm Friday to 8am Monday. Please therefore make sure that your repeat prescriptions will cover you over the weekend as you will not be able to collect it from the surgery on Saturday morning. All enquiries and appointment bookings will also have to wait until Monday morning.

The provision of general out-of-hours care is also expected to change in the near future. This will not happen until at least October. Currently we are not 100% sure what the best option is for patient care but we will endeavour to keep you informed at the earliest opportunity.

New Surgery at Tidworth

The new building has started at Station Road. However, Elm House surgery has no plans to close until it has completely finished and will run as usual until then.

Missed Appointments

In February, the Practice published the non-attendance rate for Doctors (3.8%) and Nurses (5.6%). All "persistent offenders" were written to at that time. Unfortunately, this quarter has shown an increase in non-attendance - 7% (247 missed appointments out of 3545 booked appointments for Nurses and 4.8% (409/8497) for Doctors. Once again, persistent offenders will be written to and those who have continued to miss appointments, without adequate reason, have been asked to leave the Practice as the Castle Practice feels that these patients are denying others the chance to make appointments with doctors and/or nurses.

Once again, if you cannot attend an appointment please 'phone the surgery to cancel your booking so that it can be offered to someone else.

Telephone Triage

This service has now been extended to mornings and afternoons, Monday to Friday. Anyone who feels they need medical help that day will be put on the triage list and either a nurse or doctor will 'phone them back to assess the problem. This will result in telephone advice and/or treatment, an appointment with a doctor or nurse or, if needed, a home visit. The feedback that the Practice has had is that the system works well for both staff and patients and patients are assessed and treated appropriately.

Due to telephone triage, there has been a dramatic fall in waiting time for a patient to see a doctor or nurse for a routine appointment. In January 2004, the average waiting time for a routine appointment was 3½ days to see a nurse and 11 days to see a doctor. In April this had fallen to just over 2 days to see a nurse and 5 days to see a doctor.

Cervical smears

Once again, Hampshire has changed its smear recall times. This is due to current evidence on cervical cancer screening. Women living in Hampshire will not need their first smear until aged 25 and will then be routinely recalled 3-yearly until aged 49. From 50 to 64 smears are recommended every 5 years. Obviously, if any abnormalities are found, then recalls will be based on that abnormality.

For women living in Wiltshire, the current recall programme will remain the same and is exactly the same as the new Hampshire recall programme.

All women will receive written invitations, as before, advising them of their recall dates.

Summer's Coming!

With the onset of another (hopefully) warm summer, please remember to protect yourself from the sun with appropriate sun cream/block, hat and clothing. Tics are also common at this time of the year, particularly in long grass. If you do acquire a tic on your skin, then please be very careful removing them as if the head is left it can cause infection. A Tic can be removed by covering it with nail varnish and waiting for it to fall off. There are other ways to remove them but if in doubt, please 'phone the surgery for advice and/or removal.

The Hay fever season is also upon us. Oral antihistamines, steroid nasal sprays and eye drops can all be purchased without prescription from the Pharmacy. Once again, if in doubt please ask the Pharmacist or 'phone the surgery where a doctor or nurse can give further advice.

For those travelling abroad, our nurses can give vaccination advice or you may wish to visit the Travel Doctor web site which gives advice on all aspects of travel.