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May Newsletter
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for the patients of The Roseland Surgeries
Bank Holidays:
Monday 30th May – SURGERY CLOSED
Please remember to order your prescription in time to allow for the bank holiday surgery closure. We respectfully ask for a minimum of TWO FULL WORKING DAYS to process your prescription. If we need to get medicines over to a branch site for you, or a drug you require is not in stock and needs to be ordered, we really need a further working day to do this – so please help us to help you.
You may request your prescription in person, by post, fax or by email (the surgery email is: prescriptions.portscatho@nhs.net)
You may also register with our Waiting Room facility to order your medication via an online portal. Do please ask at reception for further details and a registration form if you wish to do this.
Remember, if you are posting your request to us via Royal Mail, please allow a few more days’ notice!
Care Quality Commission Inspection
We have published a special newsletter outlining our inspection day with some additional background information that should give context to the rating that we have received. If you haven’t already seen a copy, do please ask for one at reception. We’ll also make this available on our surgery website.
……..and CQC fees……
We also thought that patients should be aware that the Care Quality Commission has increased their fees by over 200{c8c3b3d140ed11cb7662417ff7b2dc686ffa9c2daf0848ac14f76e68f36d0c20} for all GP surgeries. This is a mandatory fee which we are required to pay as part of our registration with this regulatory body. This is an additional financial burden on Primary Care at a time when many surgeries are struggling.
Free Health Checks
If you are aged 40 to 74 years of age with no pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma etc, you are entitled to a free health check here at the surgery. We can arrange an appointment with a Practice Nurse to measure your height, weight, blood pressure, your cholesterol levels and discuss healthy eating together with looking at risk factors for the future.
If you wish to avail yourself of this opportunity, please contact the reception team to book a suitable appointment.
The Launch of Café Roseland!!
We are very pleased to announce the launch of Café Roseland which will be situated in the Memorial Hall in Portscatho. This will be a local community café for residents of the Roseland Peninsula; not so much a memory café, but a place for people to get together and socialise. Refreshments will be available together with activities such as art, sewing/knitting/crochet, board games, looking through photos of Old Cornwall etc, or you may just prefer to have a cup of tea and talk to friends.
The Café will be launched officially on: Wednesday 14th September 1.30 pm to 4 pm – it would be great if you could come along. The café will run fortnightly thereafter on a Wednesday afternoon and will be an informal affair. We’re aware that a number of our residents may have limited access to transport – this should not be a barrier to coming along and so we are looking into the possibility of having the Roseland Community Bus to help bring people to the café from outlying areas.
We’re hoping the café will evolve and we will look to the community to give us ideas for things that they might like to do in the future. We are thinking about things such as ‘healthy eating’ advice, cooking on a budget, Chair Pilates etc – but if you have an idea, please share it with us!
Immunisations for the Under 2 year olds
The infant dose of meningococcal C (MenC) vaccine which has been given at 12 weeks of age, is being removed from the routine vaccination schedule as from 1st July 2016. Although Meningitis C is a serious illness, the success of the MenC vaccination programme means that there are almost no cases of MenC disease in infants or young children in the UK.
Children will continue to be given a combined Hib/MenC vaccine when they reach their first birthday. Babies will have a MenB vaccine at 8 weeks of age and 16 weeks of age. They will then have the Hib/MenC as noted above at 1 year together with a booster dose of MenB.
Further information with a full description of the symptoms of meningitis is available on the NHS Choices website: www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Meningitis/Pages/Symptoms.aspx
Baby Weighing Sessions
Mums may not be aware that we offer a ‘self-weigh’ service every Tuesday between 2 pm and 4 pm. If you would like to weigh your baby, you can come in, without an appointment and use our Baby Scales in our library. Please just let the receptionist know that you are going to do that, when you arrive. After every 3rd ‘self-weigh’, please ensure you book to see the Health Visitor for a review of your child’s progress.
PLEASE NOTE: There will be NO Health Visitor Clinic here at the surgery in June due to staff shortages. If you have any concerns or need to speak to a member of the Health Visiting team please call them directly: 01872 221700
The Roseland Children’s Centre
We have been informed that the Roseland Children’s Centre in Tregony is starting a six week session for parents/carers to focus supporting your children’s wellbeing and physical development through play and everyday activity.
The six week course, aimed at children between 12 and 36 months of age, will start on Monday 13th June until 18th July between 10 and 11 am.
If you would like to know more, please contact the Children’s Centre at Tregolls on 01872 322661.
Forms that require GP input
From time to time, patients may need a form completing by their GP. This could be a claim form for travel insurance, or to reclaim funds on private health insurance for example.
It is sensible to allow a minimum of FIVE working days for these forms to be completed by the GP and we would like to remind patients that some forms, especially those for non-NHS work, may attract a fee which is payable by the patient (though in some cases, you may reclaim that fee from the company who ask for the form to be signed). If you are at all unsure, please do ask to speak to the secretary who can confirm whether a fee is payable.
Are you having an ECG?
If your GP suggests that you need an ECG, either a routine or 24 hour ECG, our gentlemen are reminded that they will need to shave their chest in order for the sticky pads on the machine to adhere sufficiently. You may find it much easier to do this in the comfort of your own bathroom!
We have to ‘dry’ shave you (because water can leave a residue which renders the sticky pads useless) – this can be uncomfortable so if you can gents, please shave at home! Thank you.
Why do we need you to confirm your details?
A patient recently enquired from me why we needed to ask him his address at reception when he was collecting his medication. This is purely to ensure we have the correct person accepting medication for the correct patient.
It is often easy to mishear at the desk, because of everything else going on around, and so it’s much safer to ask you to give us your address.
In the same way, we may ask you to confirm your date of birth or address when we’re booking an appointment for you over the telephone. This too is to ensure we have the correct patient booked in. If you have the same name as another member of your family, please offer the receptionist the additional detail – it is very easy to mix up father and son for example at the point of booking the appointment. This can save lots of time for the doctor or nurse when you arrive for your consultation. Thank you.
Nicola Hayward
Practice Manager
Dr. Mike Black MB ChB MRCGP DRCOG FP Cert
Dr. Will Hynds MA MB BChir MRCGP DRCOG DCH
Dr. Terese Tubman BMed MRCGP DipFFP
Dr Jonathan Jacoby MB BCh BSc (Hons) MRCGP