Kings Medical Practice News www.kingmedicalpractice.co.uk

On the last day of 2010 it seemed an appropriate time to review staff births, deaths and marriages. Just before Christmas Dr Harding gave birth to a little boy - well not really so little, he weighed 8Lb 7oz - and you will be pleased to know that mum and baby are doing well! In July I announced the death of Mrs Audrey Atkinson at the age of 90 years after a short illness. Mrs Atkinson had been our practice administrator for over 50 years until her retirement in 1993. And finally I move onto marriages. We have not had any marriages in the practice in the last 12 months but we have had two divorces. Cathy Robinsons' divorce was made absolute in July and Jane (our diabetic lead nurse) has also got divorced and changed back to her married name of Jane Harrison. I wish all my readers a Happy and Healthy New Year.

The surgery is only closed on the statuary bank holidays - we are otherwise open as normal. If you need a doctor when we are closed ring our normal number - 0844 815 1340 - and your call will automatically be transferred to the out of hour service. Our opening times over the Christmas period are: Christmas Eve - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Christmas Day - closed Boxing Day - closed Monday 27/12 - closed Tuesday 28/12 - closed Wednesday 29/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday 30/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 6.00 pm - 8.00 pm) Friday 31/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 1/1 - closed Sunday 2/1 - closed Monday 3/1 - closed Tuesday 4/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 6.00 pm - 8.00 pm) Wednesday 5/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday 6/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 7.00 am - 8.00 am) Friday 7/1 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 8/1 - two extended access surgeries 8.00 am - 11.00 am. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Healthy New Year.

This might be the week that Coronation Street had its 50th anniversary but this is also my 50th blog! My first blog entry was on 4th January, 2010. I have used the blog to (1) keep our website up to date by linking the blog entry to the website home page and (2) to send as a newsletter to members of the Kings Medical Practice Google Group. Currently the newsletter is sent to 53 people in the Google group. About half of the people I send the newsletter to our staff and the other half are patients who we have recruited either because they use our online services or they have said they would like to receive the newsletter when they have registered as a patient at the practice. In my first blog I said that I want to use 'this Blog to tell you about our staff, our services, our performance and to keep you up to date to issues that may affect either you own health or the health of our patients in Normanton'. Now seems an appropriate time to get some feedback about what you think ab

I don't know about you but I am thoroughly fed up with all the snow we have had. I was out at 6 am on three mornings last week to dig my drive out so that I could get to work and on Friday when there was no fresh snow to clear I spent an hour at the surgery (together with our GP trainees) making sure that pathways to the surgery and the slope to the car park was clear. Despite the snow we managed to provide an almost normal service in the surgery building last week. We were open till 6.30 pm every night as usual and the only services we cancelled were our extended access surgeries on Thursday morning and Thursday evening. We did however cut down visits to only really, really important visits but this week we seem back to normal. All our staff turned up except for Dr Firth. He lives off the M18 in the country and is a long way from a trunk road. He has sent us pictures of how much snow they have had and it looks impressive. He helps organise an annual ploughing match in his village