The Practice will be closed for the Spring Bank Holiday on the 5th and 26th May. Please make sure you get any medications needed ordered a week before they are due to ensure we can fill the request.
WE DID YOU SAID
You said: There was an additional doctor in the room which was only introduced by name. The purpose of his presence was not made clear by the main GP I was seeing.
We did: Thank you for your feedback. We are a GP training practice, so from time to time we do have clinicians observing other GPs as they undergo training. These individuals should absolutely be introduced at your appointment and their role understood. We will feed this back to our clinical team.
• Mental Health Awareness
• Patient Pod
• Bank Holidays
National Salt Awareness Week, 12th – 18th May
The average salt consumption is around double the recommended average.
Reducing salt (sodium) in your diet can help to reduce blood pressure which in turn reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases, gastric cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, Meniere’s disease, and kidney disease.
An estimated 1.89 million deaths each year worldwide are associated with consuming too much sodium.
This Mental Health Awareness Week is all about celebrating community, and how it supports our mental health and wellbeing. Communities connect, support, and give us a sense of belonging and purpose. From local to global, online to in-person, we all need community. What's yours?
In Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s think about the number of people impacted by poor mental health. In the UK, it’s estimated that one in four adults suffers from a mental health problem of some kind each year. People suffering from poor mental health need support and to have their voices heard.
This year, let’s focus on community in terms of our wellbeing. Feeling part of a community can have a significant positive impact on our overall wellbeing. While busy lives can mean that it’s difficult to set aside time to build relationships, contributing to our communities helps us and helps others too.
Our Reception team are still able to help you fill out a Rapid Health form if you need it. You can ring us or you can pop into the surgery at either of our sites.
We know not everyone has access to the internet, so we will do our best to help you get to the care you need.
Patient Pod
We are excited to announce we now have a Patient Pod installed at our Ash Vale site.
The Pod can be used to measure your height, weight and blood pressure, as well as ask other health related questions. Even better, it can save them to your medical record! If you need a pill check or medication review, why not pop in and use the machine, it’s quick and easy. The touch screen guides you through everything you need to do.
Do you know what “normal” blood pressure is? More importantly, do you know what YOUR blood pressure is? May Measure Month encourages us to have our blood pressure checked as high blood pressure can be a risk factor for some chronic diseases and premature death. High blood pressure can be an indicator that you’re at increased risk of a heart attack or stroke. What is “normal” blood pressure, and what can you do if your blood pressure is higher than it should be?
Every day in May, 240 people will wake up to the life-changing impact of a stroke. Some of the most common risk factors for a stroke are: high blood pressure, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, high cholesterol, your age, lifestyle factors, family history, ethnicity. While you can’t do anything about your age, ethnicity or family history, you may be able to help decrease the risk from other factors.
Bartlett Group Recommends….. Mediterranean Potato Tray Bake
Ingredients
• 800g salad potatoes, thickly sliced
• 50g pine nuts, chopped
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Swappable or optional
• 1 courgette, sliced
• 1 aubergine, sliced
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
• 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced
• 1 tablespoon red pesto (optional)
• Swap tip
• Swap in veg like chopped broccoli, a few mushrooms or whatever you have! Remember, you can always swap fresh vegetables for tinned or frozen.
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan, gas mark 6).
2. Put the potatoes, chopped vegetables and pine nuts in a large roasting tin. Drizzle with the oil and toss to coat. Bake for 20 minutes, or until tender.
You can swap the fresh veg for 400g of frozen Mediterranean vegetables to speed up the prep.
3. Add the pesto, if using, and bake for another 5 minutes. Serve immediately.
Healthy eating
It’s important to try and eat a healthy diet, including a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, along with starchy carbohydrates like potatoes, rice and pasta, and lean protein.
The Eatwell Guide gives clear guidelines and images to show you what we should aim for in terms of balancing our food intake across a week.
It can be difficult to work out how much we should be eating as a portion. The British Dietetic Association has an easy guide to portion sizes. You don’t even need to have your scales to hand!
Slip on a T-shirt, Slop on Factor 30+ sunscreen, Slap on a hat, Slide on some sunglasses and Shade from the sun: this will keep you safer in summer weather.
It’s Sun Awareness Week and it’s time to think about non-melanoma skin cancers. Non-melanoma skin cancers start in the top layer of the skin. The appearance of skin cancers can vary.
As the sun starts to come out (we hope), more of us may be thinking of booking holidays. Here’s some top tips to help:
1. Have you registered for your GHIC card? This is a free health insurance card that you can register for.
2. Have you had your immunisations? Check if you need any by speaking to our travel nurse.
3. Check your medicines cabinet do you suffer from hayfever? You can get hayfever medicines from your local pharmacy.
4. Check you can travel with your medications. It’s always best beforehand to ensure you can travel with them.
5. Order medications early if you are likely to run out before you go away!
April Patient Feedback:
We like to collect patient feedback, not just because we have to, but because it helps inform the choices we make when it comes to service provision. It also helps us work out what is working and what maybe could be improved. Patient feedback is very much valued and we have introduced a board at each of our sites where feedback can be left.
Here’s some of the feedback we received this month!
You said
There was an additional doctor in the room which was only introduced by name. The purpose of his presence was not made clear by the main GP I was seeing.
We responded:
Thank you for your feedback. We are a GP training practice, so from time to time we do have clinicians observing other GPs as they undergo training. These individuals should absolutely be introduced at your appointment and their role understood. We will feed this back to our clinical team.
The appointments like foot check and annual diabetic clinic to be made one appointment would be better.
Would have preferred a shorter wait for the appointment.
Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate this as the team carrying our the diabetic assessment checks are not able to carry out reviews. Also, we often have to wait for blood results to come back before we can make any decisions on care. This does often mean, we have to offer two appointments instead of one.
We are sorry you felt the wait time for appointments was longer than you would like. We try to review our capacity regularly to understand where we may need to address gaps. Our Rapid Health system also looks at the responses that you have provided to help determine what an appropriate time frame for you to be seen in is. We aim to see all patients within 2 weeks of their request.
It would be good if messages came on text not through the NHS app.
The new NHS App imitative is to use the app first. This helps us (and the wider NHS) to save money on SMS costs which can be quite expensive. The NHS App will become a primary source of messaging for the NHS.
If the NHS app is not answered, it will default to sending you a text.
You said
Toys in waiting room for children?
Turn volume off tv in waiting room.
We responded:
Unfortunately, due to infection control measures, we are unable to provide toys for children within our waiting rooms.
However, we have started introducing paper puzzles that parents or guardians can sit with their children and complete whilst they are waiting.
We cannot turn the sound off as we do have patients who are blind and need to be able to hear their name being called through the system. We do also have to include sound due to members of the population that cannot read, or also may be hard of hearing and require the sound to be slightly louder. Further a lot of our informational videos require sound.
We do aim to keep the sound at a reasonable level.
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