PATIENT NEWSLETTER incorporating SANDHURST GROUP PRACTICE FOCUS GROUP news for SPRING 2013
Staff News
Since our last newsletter, the Practice has said Goodbye to our long serving partner Dr Coleen Pidgeon after many years devoted service to the Practice through a time of tremendous change and challenge. Both the Partners and Staff wish Dr Pidgeon a long and happy retirement.We also say goodbye to Rebecca Stacey who has left the Practice for pastures new and Diane James who has now retired
The Practice are pleased to announce that Dr Emma Joynes has now become a partner with the Practice and has moved to Sandhurst from Owlsmoor to take over the list vacated by Dr Colleen Pidgeon.
At this stage Dr Joynes is not accepting any patients on to her list, as Dr Joynes needs time to get to know her new patients at Sandhurst.
We are also pleased to announce that Dr Deepak Goyal will be joining the Owlsmoor Surgery as of the 1st of May in the capacity of an Assistant GP.
Staff wise at Sandhurst we have two new receptionists who have recently joined, and we welcome Janine Jeffers and Joanne Bundy to our team at Sandhurst, as well as a new receptionist at Owlsmoor namely Faye Simpson.
As well as new GP’s and Receptionists, the Practice are also pleased to welcome back on a full term basis Mrs Sylvia Lepperd. Sylvia will perform a dual role in that she will of course be seeing patients, but also she will be assisting the Practice Manager and the Partners in developing our loyal team of dedicated nurses further in 2013-2014.
New Telephone System
As a result of us being able to end our previous Contract with our telephone suppliers, and as a result of last years Patient Survey, we have now changed our Telephone Supplier and our telephone numbers back to local numbers
These are for Sandhurst 012523 877322 and for Owlsmoor 01344 751184.
In addition our fax numbers have changed to 01252 749839 (Sandhurst) and 01344 759049 (Owlsmoor)
The phone system provides you with a number of options and please choose your option carefully, to ensure that you call is routed efficiently.
New Clinical System
On May 1st 2013, the practice will be going live with a new Clinical System for both Practices known as Emis Web. The nature of the change, and the need to ensure that we smoothly transfer over from our current system to our new system means that we will not be able to offer any pre-bookable appointments for May 1st. The Practice will be seeing patients but appointments will only be available for May the 1st on the day. We ask our patients to be patient with us, as this is a time of change, and there has been a lot of ground work already been done to ensure that the system we are moving to, does operate properly. However all our staff and GP’s are excited by the change to a new system as we feel that it offers far better systems of work, is more user friendly and will be of benefit to patients as well as staff.
New Primary Care Organisation – Bracknell and Ascot Clinical Commissioning Group
On April 1st a wide range of change was implemented in the NHS, with a particular emphasis on Primary Care. The CCG existed in shadow form up until April 1st, but are now established as a Primary Care Organisation. Dr Rohail Malik is a CCG Board Member and has been part of this development for some time now. If you want to find out more about the CCG, what its aims and plans are the public website is listed below.
NHS 111
As many of you already know the new NHS 111 service is about to be introduced. There has been some teething problems with the launch, and the initial ‘soft’ launch planned for April 16th 2013, was cancelled and a new ‘soft launch is planned for April 25th 2013. Once we have the go ahead to change the message that we use for patients calling after hours we will do so, so that patients can get the required access to out of hours service
Practice Website
Please take a look at the website, if you are on repeat medication you can now access this by signing up to the service via the website. We still need more of you to join our on-line group, so that our patients do have a voice in what’s going on not only at Practice level, but also local and national policies. In 2012-2013 our on line group contributed to our survey in relation to planned changes in Out of Hours Services, and that survey did carry weight.
Care Quality Commission
The Practice are now registered as a service Provider with the Care Quality Commission. We are expected to be able to meet the needs of an inspection, and there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that the Practice meets the required standards. Away from the daily duties of our Doctors and Staff, we are now preparing ourselves for the requirements of the CQC
Local Partnership Working
The Practice have since the turn of the year been working closely with our colleagues at Bracknell Forest Council. The Practice has already sent invitations out to over 400 people who may benefit from Expert Patient Programmes being held in Sandhurst. A second Programme is to start in May 2013, and we will be sending out invites shortly
In addition to that, the Practice has also joined forces with the Council to assist in the New Entrant Health Assessment Service. Patients of the Practice have been invited to attend sessions being held at the Practice at 72 Yorktown Road
New Services in place at Sandhurst
Audiology services are now available at Sandhurst, provided by our Partners NHS Sussex. Coming soon will be on-site Ultrasound services to be provided by our Partners Diagnostic Health.
Both of these services are available for our Doctors to refer into, and being able to have the procedure on the surgery premises avoids going to Hospital
Measles Update April 2013
You are probably aware from the news of the significant outbreaks of measles in Swansea and Middlesbrough. Although there have only been two confirmed cases in Thames Valley in 2013 these outbreaks are a warning to us all of the continuing risk from measles in all our communities and that we should all be doing everything we can to protect our populations from the outbreaks that inevitably follow when we do not succeed in maintaining very high MMR coverage.
Measles is an extremely infectious disease and potentially serious disease. The best way of protecting individuals and populations is through immunisation with the MMR vaccine. Two doses of measles vaccine will confer protection in 99% of cases (90% after 1 dose). A level of 95% coverage is required to achieve herd immunity and prevent the spread of measles in the population.
Patient Focus Group
Our Patient Focus Group continues to work with us in looking at the needs of our patients. We have now signed up in excess of 400 of our patients to our on line focus group. We are currently looking at the provision of after hours care, and we would thank our group members for participating in this survey. The uptake is high. Why not visit the website and sign up to join our group.
Please visit
On the 21st March, the Group held a presentation by Elizabeth Burton-Phillips, (writer of ‘Mum CanYou Lend Me Twenty Quid’), about ‘What drugs did to herfamily’ with the help of her colleague Gail Pitts, who also lost a son to drug abuse. The event was kindly hosted by SandhurstSchool who supplied the refreshments, good hospitality and all the equipment we needed. There were just over 80 seats booked for the evening as this had been widely advertised throughout Sandhurst and local radio. It was even advertised in the school’s newsletter which went out to over 1000 pupils. My thanks to all who helped this event take place and especially to the school.
Meanwhile we are preparing another major survey, and we hope to send out sometime in September via the SRA magazine if possible. Our last survey regarding the Out of Hours question gave us over 515 replies, with 455 responses (86%), wanting the service to remain at Frimley Park Hospital. We then sent these results to the appropriate authority.
We look forward to seeing you at our next event where we will be supporting the Family Fitness Fun Day on 1st June at the Memorial Park – do look out for details on the Sandhurst Town Council website.