CHANGES at BECCLES MEDICAL CENTRE

from Monday 10th April 2017

Beccles Medical Centre’s mission is to create a friendly positive team, which delivers high quality appropriate health care to its patients and encourages a positive self-reliant attitude to health….. …..to ensure that we continue to deliver our ‘mission’ and so that we can deliver a more efficient service for our patients we are changing the way we work.

Increasing workloads and patient expectations mean that we are now looking at new ways of working that build on current good practice to reduce the number of GP first point of contact.

Patient’s expectations have increased and by analysing our calls we know that about 60% of patients on our GP call-back lists could have sought advice and guidance for their problem from another source. Often the GP isn’t really the best person to see and another healthcare professional could deal with your problem.

We would like patients to think about where they could seek advice:

Before you ring the surgery ……

  • Have you thought about ‘self care’?
  • Have you looked at the NHS Choices website?
  • Have you spoken to a Pharmacist?
  • Have you considered whether a self-referral to Physio Direct is appropriate for your problem?
  • How long have you had this problem? Have you left it long enough before ringing?

From Monday 10thApril 2017 there will be changes to our system and the times that you can contact us:

  • Contact us between 8am and 11am: if you have explored other options and still feel that you need medical advice. Please bear in mind that:
  • You will speak to a Receptionist who will ask you what prompted your call today and a series of questions to enable her to direct you appropriately to the right healthcare professional or source of advice – which may NOT be a Doctor
  • If you are put on the call-back list the GP will expect you to have resourced and tried other areas first
  • Contact us after 11am: to make an appointment for a Practice Nurse or Health Care Assistant
  • Contact us after 2pm: for results or if you have a general enquiry
  • Online Access: If you are unable to ring at these times we would encourage you to register for our online services which will enable you to book and cancel appointments, order repeat prescriptions, view your test results and aspects of your patient record
  • Out of Hours: [after 6.30pm, before 8am and at weekends] phone 111 for the NHS out of hours service

Please see the attached letter from the Doctors…..