Emsworth Medical Practice Autumn Quack Newsletter 2023

Staff Update

It is with great sadness that we are saying goodbye to Dr Jackie Lytton who will be retiring in December after working for 20 years with the Practice. Dr Lytton will be missed enormously by her patients and colleagues alike.  We all wish Dr Lytton a long and happy retirement.  A personal message from Dr Lytton:

‘I have been very fortunate to have found Emsworth, the surgery, the staff and the community we serve. We have faced many challenges over the years, the pandemic can’t go without mention. We have, however, emerged with a new premises, now home to Emsworth Medical Practice, which has a bright future and we are in a good position to face the challenges which General Practice is currently facing. I will inevitably miss it.’

Dr Hannah Morgan became an additional GP Partner in preparation for Dr Lytton’s retirement. In January Dr Lytton’s patients will be shared amongst the current GPs and will be informed of their new GP in due course. Unfortunately, we will be unable to accommodate individual requests for certain GPs.  We ask that you give your new GP a chance rather than asking to transfer to other doctors in the Practice which we may not be able to accommodate with the number of patients transferring. Many thanks.

Dr James Glazier has now come to the end of his GP training having passed all of his exams.  We and many of the patients were sorry to see him leave. We wish him every success for the future.

Flu Vaccination and Covid Booster Programme

We are now well under way with the flu and Covid vaccinations.  To date we have given 3,730 flu vaccinations and 4197 of our patients have had Covid boosters.   Our amazing nursing staff have been out vaccinating those patients who are housebound and living in care homes in addition to holding weekly clinics at the Practice.

We still have vaccines and appointments available so if you are eligible and would like either or both vaccinations then please do contact us to book in.

Please support your General Practice by having the boosters at the surgery.

The eligibility criteria for both flu and covid vaccinations remains unchanged:

• all adults aged 65 years and over
• persons aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group,
• frontline health and social care workers
• persons aged 12 to 64 years who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression
• persons aged 16 to 64 years who are carers and staff working in care homes for older adults.

Patient Online Access to Records

As your GP Practice, we have been asked by NHS England to provide you with access to your full medical record from 31 October 2023 via the NHS app and the NHS website if you have a suitable NHS login.

Emsworth Medical Practice currently has a responsibility to ensure that your health data remains secure and protects all of our patients from potential harm.

Your GP, or primary care medical record, contains consultation notes based on conversations between you, your GP and their team:  This will include medicines prescribed to you and test results if requested by your GP; allergies, vaccines, along with your medical conditions and documents that may have been sent from local hospitals, clinics or other agencies, eg. the police.

Please note that this access is only to your prospective primary care record from 31/10/23 and this will allow you to see new entries made on your record or documents added to the record but will not allow you to see past information. Hospital records or results of investigations requested anywhere else are not available on the primary care record.

We are supportive of providing you with access to your record but we wish to do this safely and make you aware that this is happening so that you can opt out if you so wish.

There is likely to be sensitive and personal information within your medical record.

It is important that you understand the risks that may be involved in having such confidential data either on your smartphone with the NHS app installed or online if other people might have access to that information through your devices.

To protect some patient groups, we have made the decision to restrict access to records for those groups of people who may be vulnerable based on data held on the primary care record. We would like to reassure you that this is for your protection only to reduce the risk of abuse of that health record.

The Government has been clear that if a patient does not wish to have access, then we do not have to provide it.  Emsworth Medical Practice wants to ensure that if you DO NOT WANT your record to be visible online it is important that you let us help you and we can restrict access to your record.  It is important to let us know as soon as possible if you wish to opt-out of access to records by completing the form on our website www.emsworthsurgery.co.uk/accelerated-access-to-records.   You can also read more about access to records here.  You can change your mind and apply at any time to opt back in by completing the opt in form on the Practice website.

If you have identified that your access has been restricted and would like Emsworth Medical Practice to review this decision please complete the form available on our website.

Patient Participation Group (PPG) Health Talks

In June our GP Partner, Dr Hannah Morgan, who has an interest in heart disease, provided our patients with a health talk on cardiac rehabilitation.  This was held at the Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club and covered various conditions such as blood pressure, angina, heart attack, cholesterol and cardiac rehabilitation.  This was well received and a large number of people attended.  This talk can be read on the Emsworth Medical Practice website under ‘Surgery News’.

On the 24^th October, the PPG organised a talk on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) by trainer Dave Ewen and his ambulance paramedic colleague, Dan Mahoney, from South Central Ambulance.
It was amazing how many topics were covered and questions asked from a hall packed at the Slipper Sailing Club to standing room only.  Many of the audience were able to come forward to practice CPR on the dummies and handle defibrillators. Those present were also given maps of where the defibrillators are sited in the Emsworth area Defibs.

My grateful thanks to the PPG committee for all their work and to Dave and Dan, what a team, both interacting with each other to make a great talk, thank you both most sincerely for giving up your evenings for us.     Jim Strudwick, Chair.

 Email Addresses

If you would be happy for the Surgery to contact you by email please could you complete a form at the front desk in order that we can add this to your contact details.  If you have already supplied us with your email address please could you remember to let us know if there are any changes to that address in order that your details can be updated.

Likewise if you have any changes to a landline, mobile telephone number or address please let us know.     Thank you.

Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening

The NHS invites all men for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) screening in their 65^thyear and our patients are now being invited.  Symptoms will not usually be noticed with small aneurysms.  Screening is offered so that aneurysms can be detected early and monitored or treated which greatly reduces the chances of the aneurysm causing serious problems.  Men are six times more likely to have an abdominal aortic aneurysm than women. The chance of having an aneurysm increases with age and patients are at higher risk if they are or have been a smoker, have high blood pressure or if any of their relatives has or have had an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Around 1 in 25 men in England aged between 65 and 74 have an abdominal aortic aneurysm. There are around 6,000 deaths each year in England and Wales from ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms.

The programme targets men aged 65 and over because 95% of ruptured AAA’s occur in this group.

If you are male and aged over 65 you can self-refer to the AAA Screening Programme by phoning 02381 206279.

E-Consults

Our e-Consult service is gaining momentum!  This service enables patients to access medical advice via the Practice website. At any time 24/7 a patient can submit a condition-based questionnaire to the GP for a response by the end of the next working day with feedback and treatment options.  This service is not for urgent problems and unfortunately is not available to those under the age of 18.

The features and benefits of e-Consult are:-

• Significant improvements in patient access to their GP
• Better health outcomes through earlier detection of significant symptoms and earlier intervention
• Better Practice efficiency with more focused use of clinical capacity
• A safe, convenient way for patients to self-manage or consult with their own GP

You can also use this service for general or administrative enquiries, for example, if you need to request a follow up sick certificate or have a query about a blood test / x-ray etc.

Repeat Prescription Requests

Please note that if you do not have a printed repeat prescription slip with which to order repeat medication, you will be asked to complete a request form at the reception desk. We will now require you to include the dose (as well as the name) of any medication when you complete this slip.  We will absolutely not be able to accept your request unless we have all of the necessary information to ensure that no mistakes are made.

Please allow 3 working days for your request to be processed.  Thank you.

 Urine Tests

Many patients bring urine samples in to the Practice to be tested.  This may be because your doctor has asked you to or because you suspect that you may have a urinary tract infection and would like a sample checked.

Please note that we will only accept samples brought in before 11.00am. If you have symptoms after this time and are feeling unwell, you will be referred to the duty doctor/nurse. If you are feeling well, please wait until the following day to drop a sample off.

Please do not post urine samples through the letter box!  Thank you.

Up to Date Information

Please keep us updated when you change your address, telephone numbers and email address. It is especially important that we have the correct contact numbers for you as sometimes we may need to get hold of you urgently to change an appointment or if a clinician is off sick etc.  In addition, we now have a texting service available which we can use to contact you on your mobile with any important information.   Please see the receptionist if you need to update any of your details.   Thank you.

Carers

If you are looking after or caring for someone please do let us know.   Our receptionist, Abbie, keeps a register of carers and is here to help you with information you may require or with any problems you may have. Once registered she will stay in touch with you if you would like and keep you updated with things which may be of interest to you.  We are pleased to announce that we have recently become a ‘Dementia Friendly Practice’.