Covid-19 update 17/03/20

Posted on March 16th, 2020

Good Morning
As promised we will try to update you every day with the latest info regarding the surgery. Im sure everyone is aware of the latest guidance, anyone with cough, fever, high temperature, sore throat etc must isolate and so must anyone else living in the same household for at least 14 days. There is no need to contact your GP or NHS 111, we advise you to take over the counter medication in the first instance, please only contact the surgery or NHS 111 if you feel you need medical assistance, people are not being tested for Covid-19 unless receiving hospital treatment. If you have any difficulty getting your prescriptions or indeed essentials such as food, please by all means get in touch with the surgery who will be happy to help with this, we also have contact details for a volunteer group who will be able to help those families in isolation.

Appointments:
All appointments in the practice now will be urgent only. Anything ongoing that is not of an urgent nature or reviews will all need to be cancelled, so please help us by cancelling your appointment. You can cancel your appointment by calling 0151 327 4593 or emailing wcccg.willastonsurgery@nhs.net, alternatively we will be getting in touch with those patients that we need to reschedule but it would reduce or ever growing work load if you cancelled the appointment yourself before we have to contact you.

Phlebotomy Appointments:
All routine phlebotomy appointments will be cancelled, only urgent bloods and INR’s will be seen – again if you have an appointment and don’t cancel we will co0ntact you.

Nurse Appointments:
Only urgent appointments will continue with the nurse, where appropriate appointments will be changed to telephone calls or cancelled

We will have a staff member on the door from today stopping people coming into the surgery after the nightmare we had yesterday, unfortunately people did not pay attention to the notices or the guidance and still came in to the surgery to make routine appointments and order scripts etc. This isn’t acceptable any longer, to reduce the risk to yourself and to our staff you will not be allowed into the practice unless you have specifically been given an appointment and screened. You will also be asked the relevant questions again before entering the surgery for an appointment just as a precaution.

Can we also ask that patients refrain from emailing or ringing to ask questions about being compromised due to their underlaying conditions, this is taking up the GP’s time when he should be treating acutely ill patients. If you feel there is a risk then please work from home or isolate, make the decision to protect yourself following the guidance. Speak to your employer also who will also be able to advise. We need to distinguish the difference in URGENT problems for the GP to be dealing with and things that can be resolved yourself.

We have the best interest of our patients and staff at heart, so if you are acutely ill and have a genuine concern then please contact us.

Click the link below for latest guidance

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults

Many thanks
Willaston