MOIRA SURGERY WINTER NEWSLETTER 2023/24
General Practice in Northern Ireland is in crisis, and Moira Surgery is no exception.
Our priority is to provide a service which is, above all, safe, ensuring that patients get the care they need, when they need it. This is becoming an almost impossible task as demands on general practice have been increasing year on year, hugely exacerbated by the COVID pandemic and lack of local government, but without any extra resources being made available.
APPOINTMENT SYSTEM UPDATE
In order to ensure patient safety and prevent staff burnout we need to introduce a strict limit on the number of patient contacts we deal with each day, commencing 8th January 2024.
To accommodate this we will be reducing the number of pre-bookable routine appointments per day, but making it possible to book these up to 2 weeks in advance. The majority of appointments, however, will be on-the-day and we advise patients to ring at 830am in order to secure one.
To improve efficiency and ensure optimum care we will ask all patients to attend for a face-to-face appointment rather than a phone call.
To book a routine appointment we encourage patients to first go on-line, and if there is no availability to ring reception. Once all the appointments for the day have gone you will be advised to either:
a) Go to ED (if it is an emergency)
b) Contact out-of-hours after 6pm if you feel it cannot wait until the following day
c) Go on-line/call back the following day. New appointments are released at midnight
Reception staff will remain available to deal with all other queries (eg. blood test results, sick lines) but will not be able to squeeze in any extra appointments, and a GP will always be available to other health and social care staff such as hospital Drs, palliative care nurses, district nurses, etc for urgent patient issues.
We are very sorry for the inconvenience that this will likely cause, but feel this is preferable to risking there no longer being a functioning Moira Surgery at all.
Thank you for your understanding.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US IMPROVE THE SYSTEM FOR OUR PATIENTS
- The vast majority of common illnesses get better by themselves and/or can be treated with over-the-counter medication. Most pharmacies offer a ‘minor ailments’ service which allows access to treatments that previously were only available on prescription. In the same way most opticians can nowadays deal with urgent eye problems via the NIPEARS service which is free
- Please register via reception for on-line booking of appointments and ordering of prescriptions – this frees up phone lines so you don’t have to wait so long in the queue.
- Please be like the majority of our patients in respecting our staff. We are doing our best to accommodate our patients’ needs but when staff are on the receiving end of rude or abusive behaviour this creates extra stress. We have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour and patients who repeatedly offend in this way will be removed from our practice register.
- Please contact your MLA and ask them to demand that the Dept of Health provide the necessary resources to allow your GP surgery to offer the level of service that we would like to offer and that you need. Specifically you can mention restarting the roll-out of multidisciplinary teams and an increase in practice funding.
PRESCRIPTIONS
Please do not telephone the surgery to check if prescriptions are ready. If you have nominated a community pharmacy to collect for you please ring them first to check that they have collected your prescription. Most pharmacies call with the surgery daily to collect completed prescriptions. Boots chemist do offer a texting service to advise patients when medication is ready, you will need to organise this facility with Boots directly.
Please allow ample time for your prescription to be processed by both the surgery and the chemist. The surgery needs 2 full working days with the pharmacy needing at least the same thereafter.
APPOINTMENTS ARE VALUABLE!
The high numbers of appointments still being missed is of great concern to the practice. Not only is this a waste of resources, it is frustrating for patients who are trying to be seen and also for staff and clinicians. Non-attendance results in longer waiting times for you to be seen. Repeated non-attendance may result in you being removed from the surgery register.
NEW URINARY TRACT INFECTION SERVICE & PILOT SORE THROAT SERVICE
Our colleagues in community pharmacy are offering a new service for the treatment of urinary tract infections. This will be useful to those persons who may not be able to come into the surgery due to work commitments or when our daily appointments system has reached capacity. You are eligible to use this facility at any participating high street pharmacies. Patients can use this service if they meet the following criteria:-
Female, aged 16 to 64, not pregnant or breastfeeding and not having used multiple antibiotics in the previous 6 months. Full information can be found here:-
We also anticipate the implementation of a Sore Throat service which is currently being Piloted. Initial information is available here:-
NEW ARRIVALS
The practice takes great pleasure in welcoming the following staff to the surgery:-
David Ferry, Abigail McAllister and Michelle Graham who join our reception team plus Kim McCoubrey who will be providing a Cervical Smear clinic every Friday.
Also we all would like to congratulate Donna Cunningham our Practice Nurse who has celebrated her own new arrival on 21st December, a beautiful little girl. Happy to say that mummy and baby are doing well.
Thank you for taking the time to read this information.
From all Staff at Moira Surgery.
