Kings Medical Practice News www.kingmedicalpractice.co.uk

The surgery is only closed on the statuary bank holidays (Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day) - 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: Friday 21/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 22/12 -Extended access surgery  8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 23/12 - closed Christmas Eve - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Christmas Day - closed Boxing Day 26/12 - closed Thursday 27/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgeries 7.00 am - 8.00 am and 6.30 pm - 8.30 pm) Friday 28/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 29/12 - -Extended access surgery  8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 30/12 - closed Monday 31/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm New Years Day - closed Wednesday 2/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday 3/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 7.00 am - 8.00 am) Friday 4/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm S

Congratulations to Dr Sarah Deeley, she has just be appointed as an approved GP Trainer. Kings Medical Practice is an approved GP Training Practice and Dr Deeley is now the fourth approved GP Trainer in the practice. In order for young doctors to become GPs they have to undertake a three year training programme. Half of this time is spent in approved GP Training Practices like Kings Medical Practice. Our trainees will have already done two years in hospital posts since they qualified and then be either at the start or end of their training programme. Most of our trainees will be in the last year year of their training programme so although they are still quite junior they will have been qualified for at least four years. During their time with us they have two tutorials a week and their work is closely supervised. After each surgery session they are allocated a more senior doctor to debrief them about the patients they have seen and any queries they may have had. In addition if the

If you have had a typhoid vaccination (Typhium Vi) at the surgery recently you may have read in the papers or seen on TV that there has been a manufacturing problem with some batches of the vaccine. Click here to read more about the news story. The manufacturer of Typhim VI has found that some batches of vaccine that patients have received since January 2011 are too weak and patients will not be fully immunised. The practice uses Typhim VI and we have looked through our records and identified nearly 250 patients who may have received the faulty vaccine. We are writing to everyone who has received the faulty vaccine to tell them that they may not be fully covered against typhoid. The current advise from the manufacturer is not to have re-vaccination but to follow the usual typhoid avoidance measures. These are to follow strict food and water precautions. Click here for further advice but remember BOIL IT, COOK IT, PEEL IT OR FORGET IT!

I am a GP Board member of NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and from April 2013 the CCG will be commissioning (ie buying) hospital services for patients across Wakefield District. Our biggest provider of specialist hospital services is Mid Yorks NHS Trust and they are currently going through a consultation exercise about changing the way they deliver services. On Wednesday evening this week I went to South Elmsall Town Council to explain these changes. It seems odd that I was their doing the talking but the CCG will have agreed these changes and will be leading on consultation with patients about these changes. I was talking about what the changes are, why their needs to change and some of the challenges these changes will bring. It seems perverse that only 18 months after two brand new hospitals at Pinderfields and Pontefract were opened we are talking about major changes but services cannot continue as they are currently configured for two main reasons. Firstly the

Controversy about the risks and benefits of breast screening has been on the news in the last couple of days. The debate is about whether screening does more harm than good. An independent review published in the Lancet - click here for the summary , has concluded that for every life saved from breast screening, three women had treatment for cancer that would never have been fatal. Currently women aged 47 to 70 are invited every three years to have a mammogram that helps to detect early breast cancer in the hope that early treatment is more successful. And indeed it is because women who have a screen detected breast cancer are almost always cured. That is the really good news. But on the other hand if a women goes for screening they have a 1% risk of being over diagnosed and there is debate as to whether the number of women who are treated unnecessarily for every life saved is higher than three. Some critics have said that it might be as high as ten. To read more about this click

On Wednesday the practice was closed all afternoon for a training session. The training session was about 'Preventing Falls in Older People'. We had a multidisciplinary session with staff from the practice (doctors, nurses and our admin staff), district nurses, Wakefield Council, Wakefield District Housing, Carelink, Mid Yorks Community Therapy Services and Wakefield Carers Council. The number of older people in Normanton is increasing and the number of older people who fall and sustain a fracture is increasing as well. The workshop discussed ways in which we can identify people who are at risk of falling and then address some of these risk factors. The way that we are trying to screen people who are at risk of falling is through a Falls Risk Assessment Tool. The four questions we ask as part of this screening process are: 1 Have you had any falls in the last 12 months - yes or no 2 Do you take 4 or more medications - yes or no 3 Have you had a stroke or do you suffer for

We have recently received updated advice from the Medical Health Regulatory Authority about the increased risk of myopathy associated with other medication being taken at the same time. Muscle aches with simvastatin are a fairly common side effect but myopathy is more serious when muscles become inflamed and then weak. The full advice can be read here on the MHRA website . The commonest drug that will be affected is amlodipine. Amlodipine is a drug that we commonly use to treat patients with raised blood pressure and the new advice says that the maximum dose of simvastatin that should be used is 20mg. We have decided that the easiest way to manage this situation is actually to swap patients to a different statin that does not have an interaction with amlodipine. Our thinking is that if patients are taking simvastatin in a dose of 40mg cutting the dose down to 20mg will have an adverse effect on their cholesterol control. Advice from Wakefield PCT Medicines Management departments is

If you had your hospital appointment at Pinderfields or Pontefract changed last year then you were not alone! Figures from Mid Yorks Hospital Trust, the Trust that runs Pinderfields and Pontefract, show that last year nearly 30% of appointments were either cancelled or reschedule. Not being able to book a Choose and Book appointment at Pinderfields or Pontefract is the commonest complaint to our local Patient Advice and Liaison Service. But now that GPs are in charge of commissioning we have a plan! The Trust has acknowledged that this is unacceptable and has introduced the Out-Patients Improvement Programme. This programme aims to deliver seamless Out-Patient and Choose and Book booking programmes so that when you ring to make an appointment you can and it is not cancelled. The programme will be actively managed through Contract meetings between NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group and Mid Yorks. The pathway to success plans that by the end of March 2013 only 9% of appointment

We are holding 'flu vaccination clinics on three Saturdays in October - the 6th, 13th and 20th. We recommend 'flu vaccinations to anyone who would be at more risk of the serious complications of 'flu than the general population. This means people over 65, those with a chronic lung or chest condition like asthma or COPD, people who have diabetes and people with heart disease. If you click here you can follow a link to the page on our website where you can download our 'flu information leaflet and consent form. The 'flu vaccination clinics are being held between 8.30 and 12 each Saturday morning. To make an appointment you can either ring our appointments number on 0844 815 1340 option 1 or click here to go direct to our online appointments booking. To book an appointment via the Internet you have to be registered with SystmOne Online - to do this either ask at reception or the next practice member of staff you see for a user name and password. Th

NHS Wakefield Commissioning Group has launched a new campaign to encourage patients to seek help first from their GP rather than going to A&E. It is entitled 'Your GP will see you now' and has a nice coloured leaflet. Click here to see a copy, and the campaign even has a Facebook page - click here . Our local A&E Departments are under a lot of pressure from patients attending who could have seen their GP first. The Commissioning Group has invested in extra capacity at GPs surgeries across Wakefield to make it easier for patients to see their GP rather than going to A&E. We have looked at the numbers of our patients attending A&E and there is a peak on weekdays between 5pm and 6pm. This is when the surgery is open and patients could have come to us. We have used the investment from the Commissioning Group to have extra appointments every weekday between 5.00 and 6.00 pm. So, if you are thinking of going to A&E during the daytime, when the surgery is open:

If you have ever had a consultation with me you will know that on my windowsill I have a beautiful orchid. It has been in flower since last November. But all good things come to an end and over the last month the flowers on it have started to die and there is now a new shoot spurting up offering the promise of more new flowers again. I am often asked 'is it real?' Yes it is, quickly followed by 'how do you look after it because mine always die?' So here is my easy guide to looking after orchids (well not really my guide more based on what my wife has told me to because she is the one in our house with green fingers - I am just the hired help!) Find a position they like - mine is on a north facing windowsill and it loves it Don't over water - I water mine once a week with half a cup of water Prune dead flower spikes off at the bottom of the shoot above a bud Don't throw them away when the flowers drop off, keep them and wait till you get another flower sp

The surgery is closed for the August Bank Holiday on Monday 27th August. 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 hours service. Our opening times over the Bank Holiday Weekend are: Friday 24th August - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 25th August - extended access surgery 8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 26th August - closed Monday 27th August - closed Tuesday 28th August - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 6.30 - 8.00 pm) Wednesday 29th August - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday 30th August - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 7.00 am -8.00 am) Friday 31st August - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm If you ring our normal telephone number (0844 815 1340) when we are closed you will be automatically transferred to our Out of Hours provider. But there are other services available when we are closed that might be able to help you. LLoyds  Pharmacy at 6-8 High Street openin

Although patients report high levels of satisfaction with contacting the practice by telephone (84% of users were satisfied in the last NHS Annual Survey) the use of an 0844 number to contact the practice has consistently been one of the issues that patients have feedback to us via the Patient Participation Group and also our in-house survey of Patient Satisfaction. Last week I signed a contract with our telephone provider to move to a geographical number. It is likely that the system will be install in September or October of this year. In the meantime if you are concerned about the cost of your call to our 0844 telephone number tell the member of staff and they will ring you back. Our 0844 practice number is going to change - watch this space for the new number!

Its not very often that blogs I write have been prompted by patient encounters but this week I saw a patient who had what sounded like a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) two weeks ago and had waited for a routine appointment to see me. TIAs are mini strokes in which patients have the symptom's of a stroke but then fully recover. The significance of TIAs are there there is a one in chance that those who have had a TIA will experience a full stroke during the four weeks following the TIA. The symptoms of a stroke or TIA are remembered with the mnemonic FAST: F ACE: the face may have dropped to one side A RMS: person may not be able to lift one or both arms and keep them there S PEECH: may slurred or garbled T IME: it is time to dial 999 immediately if you see any of these signs or symptoms A stroke is a medical emergency that requires immediate medical attention. So recognising the signs of stroke and calling 999 for an ambulance is crucial. The sooner somebody who is ha

We are a GP Training practice and regularly have doctors attached to us who are training to become GP's. In the practice there are three approved GP Trainers - Dr Brown, Dr Walsh and Dr Harding. Trainees are attached to the practice for either six or twelve months and change around at the start of August and February. Change over day this time is Wednesday, 1st August. We are saying goodbye to Dr Mirza (she is now fully qualified and going to do sessions at the Olympics), Dr Hilton (Kings Medical Practice was her first post on a three year GP training post and she is going to do Emergency Medicine at Leeds), Dr Towers (she will be entering her second year of training and is going to Pinderfields to do Paediatrics) and Dr Rafique (who is going to College Lane Surgery at Ackworth to complete his training). The doctors who are replacing them are; Dr Mo Sinha, Dr Prab Matharu, Dr Emma Barker and Dr Amina Vandu-Chikolo. We have more training doctors attached to us and just to comple

Mid Yorkshire Hospitals have this week announced a public consultation on changes to hospital services for people with eye problems, having orthopaedic surgery and needing neuro rehabilitation. The first set of proposals are to move services for patients with some eye conditions (glaucoma, medical retina problems and cataract services) from Pinderfields to Pontefract. Along with this the orthopaedic service would develop Pontefract hospital as the major centre for planned orthopaedic operations for patients in Wakefield, but patients would still be able to attend out patients at their local hospitals. A second set of proposals is to move a 12 bedded in patient neuro rehabilitation unit from Pinderfields to Dewsbury. The neuro rehabilitation services helps people who have had complex disabilities from diseases like stroke, brain injury or multiple sclerosis. You can find more details about the proposal and make comments during the consultation period by clicking here and following

We are just about to write to patients who are taking doxazosin to tell them that we are swapping the formulation of their medication. Doxazosin is a drug that is prescribed for mainly for controlling blood pressure and also sometimes for patients with prostate problems. It is used as a fourth line blood pressure lowering drug - that is after we have tried three others to control patients blood pressure. We are swapping the form of the drug from a modified release form to the immediate release form. Patients should notice no difference in the swap. According to our colleagues in medicines management the half life of the active drug in both the immediate release and modified release form is 22 hours, so both drugs are suitable to take once a day. The only difference patients might noticed is that the dose of the immediate release variety is half that of the modified release form. If you are taking 8mg modified release doxazosin the new dose of the immediate release form is 4mg. The

This is my first blog for nearly three weeks because I have been away on holiday. I have been to Sicily - we had a great time and we had blue skies and hot weather and of course I followed the 'Slip, Slop, Slap' message - 'slip on a shirt', 'slop on some sunscreen', and 'slap on a hat'. The practice provides a full travel advice service to our patients including travel vaccinations, travel health advice (Slip, Slop, Slap), advice about malaria prophylaxis and Yellow Fever vaccinations. Most travel vaccinations are free - the exceptions are generally if you are going to unusual places or doing something unusual e.g. back packing trips in the wilds or staying somewhere for longer than three months. The commonest vaccinations patients have to pay for are Yellow Fever, Hepatitis B and Rabies vaccinations. You will also have to pay for malaria tablets but the practice does not charge if you need a private prescription for malaria prophylaxis tablets. Th

Thursday is the British Medical Associations 'day of action' where the BMA, the doctors union, has called upon doctors to take industrial action in support of a disagreement with the government about doctors pensions. The BMA is asking doctors in hospitals and general practices to just undertake emergency work and not do any routine work. In general practice this would mean no routine appointments, not issuing routine repeat prescription requests and not giving out any results. They have suggested that general practices should be open for emergency consultations, visits and requests but do nothing else. The disagreement about pensions is that the government has changed doctors pension arrangements so that we will have to work longer and make larger contributions for a small pension.But a typical NHS doctor who retires at 60 will still receive a pension of more than £48,000 a year for life, plus a tax-free lump sum of around £143,300. New NHS figures also show that 104 d

The short answer is no! With headlines in the national press suggesting that GPs are going on strike because a £53,000 a year pension deal is not enough ( click here to read the full story in The Independent) going on strike and any other industrial action is going to be a PR disaster and the BMA is just shooting itself in the foot. GPs are well paid, we have secure jobs, we have good pensions and there is a recession - stupid! The governments proposals for pension changes mean that GPs will pay more, for less good pensions and will have to work longer. However GPs are very angry at the unfairness of what the government is doing for two  reasons. Firstly pensions were renegotiated in 2008 to ensure that they were sustainable; pension age was raised by five years, contributions were significantly raised form 6% to 8.5% and the tax payers contributions were capped against future increases. Secondly, the NHS pension scheme is very sustainable - as a direct result of the 2008 change

The surgery is closed for the Jubilee Bank Holiday on Monday 4th June and Tuesday 5th June. 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 hours service. Our opening times over the Jubilee Weekend are: Friday 1st June - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 2nd June - extended access surgery 8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 3rd June - closed Monday 4th June - closed Tuesday 5th June - closed Wednesday 6th June - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday 7th June - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm (and extended access surgery 7.00 am -8.00 am and 6.30 pm - 8.00 pm) Friday 8th June - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm If you ring our normal telephone number (0844 815 1340) when we are closed you will be automatically transferred to our Out of Hours provider. But there are other services available when we are closed that might be able to help you. LLoyds  Pharmacy at Kings Medical Centre is open on Saturday 2nd June from 8.00 am to 1.

We went live with Electronic Prescribing on Wednesday. After a few false starts it is now up and running so when you ring up and request a repeat prescription if you have chosen (or nominated a pharmacist) your prescription will  go electronically straight to them and you won't have to come to the surgery to pick the prescription up. We can do this with almost all drugs - we currently can't do it with Controlled Drugs - these are drugs such as morphine and some sleeping tablets. Quite a few repeat prescription items need altering so that we can prescribe them electronically. Generally we have to change from pack numbers to actual numbers of tablets. The software does this automatically some of the time but quite a lot of the time the doctor needs to alter them. So if you see us fiddling about with the computer, more than normal, this is probably why! We had a few problems on Wednesday - having to shutdown the clinical system and then restart several times, but the PCT staff

A new system of electronic prescribing goes live in Normanton next week. We have been enthusiastic advocates of this new system and we will be the first practice to 'go-live' in Yorkshire and the fifth in England! Under the new system if you have chosen a practice to dispense your medication (called nominating in the new jargon of the system) when you ring for a repeat prescription the prescription will be sent electronically to the pharmacy you have chosen to dispense your medication. The pharmacy can be anywhere - near work, home or even where you shop, and you won't have to come to the surgery to collect a paper prescription. I think this is a really great advance for patients - will make getting repeat prescriptions much easier and it is also good for the practice as well. It will reduce the number of patients coming to the surgery to collect their repeats and reduce pressure on reception. The new system has all the features of how we manage repeat prescriptions at

Patients know that I am interested in the finances of our local health system and this week a patient, who works for Mid Yorks NHS Trust, gave me a copy of a paper detailing workforce reform measures to reduce the Trusts costs. Mid Yorks NHS Trust runs Pontefract, Pinderfields and Dewsbury hospitals and they have had financial problems for a number of years. The paper states that they have an underlying financial deficit of £37 million. Over 70% of the Trusts costs are on staff and it is inconceivable that the Trust will be able to tackle the deficit without reviewing the cost of the pay bill. In the paper it identifies up to 200 possible jobs that may be a risk. The paper has bench marked the Trusts performance against other similar hospitals financial performance. Some of the information makes for very interesting reading. It has identified that theatre utilisation in the Trust is in the lower quartile of similar Trusts but makes the point that the average earnings for doctors em

Dr Aziz is now a fully qualified GP and finished training with us last week. She has finished a little bit out of synch with other training doctors because just as she started GP training scheme she was seriously ill and had quite a bit of sick leave before she was fully recuperated and started her scheme. She is doing a maternity leave locum in Castleford that starts in June and although she finished at the end of April our staff liked her so much that they had booked her up in May - so she has been doing some sessions with us till she starts in Castleford! We have all enjoyed working with Dr Aziz and we wish her all the best for her career in the future.

At the Baptist Chapel, next to Kings Medical Centre, builders have been re roofing the Chapel, school room and caretakers house that was very badly damaged by fire in 2009. But for the last two weeks work seems to have stopped and it is only today that I found out why. The builders, Killby and Gayford, have gone into administration. Kilby and Gayford were a 150 year old compancy that had an impressive portfolio of work including the remodelling to 10 Downing Street in 2008. You can read more about it by clicking here . I think it is very sad that yet another building firm has gone to the wall.

This week the practice has started providing extra appointment capacity in an attempt to reduce the number of patients going to local Accident and Emergency Departments. We are doing this as part of the Primary Care Transformation Scheme funded by Wakefield Alliance - our local Clinical Commissiong Group. The scheme is investing £2.6 million in local practices and if successful will save £5.3 million per year by less patients attending A&E and less patients getting admitted to hospital. The investment in general practice has to all be spent on additional staff and we plan to spend it on extra doctors to provide extra same day appointments in the afternoon, extra nurses to ensure that all patients with a long term condition have a Care Plan and additional administrative staff to ensure that patients with long term conditions are called to surgery to be seen. We have already had some of the money to 'pump prime' the scheme, now it is up to us to see if we can deliver .... !

From 1st April the cost of a prescription item has risen by 25p to £7.65. You have to pay a prescription charge for every item on a prescription so if there are two items you will have to pay £15.30. Prescriptions are free for the under 16's, over 60's, people on income related benefits, pregnant women and people with certain long term conditions. Contraception is free. You can get an exemption form if you have cancer, diabetes and are on treatment, have epilepsy, hypothyroidism and few other conditions. But the list of long term conditions that you can get a exemption form for is quite short and actually makes little sense - you are not eligible for an exemption form if you have a heart condition, asthma or raised blood pressure. Makes no sense! However there is some help available. If you have to pay for more that three prescription items in 3 months or more than 13 items in 12 months you may find it cheaper to buy a Prescription Prepayment Certificate (PPC). You can buy a PP

In Spring 2012 the practice has undertaken a Local Patient Survey that seeks the views of patients about key areas of the sevice we deliver; telephone access, reception, communication, consultations, continuity of care and enablement. The full survey results can be found here by clicking here . The report benchmarks our performance against those of other GP practices. We are above the benchmark averaage for all of the questions asked in the survey. The free text comments however are a rich source of information about the quality of the service we provide. In consultation with our Patient Participation Group we have identified three key areas to address over the next 12 months: 0844 telephone number. Despite achieving 13% higher rating for the telephone access questions than other GP practices the use of an 0844 number for the practice still causes concern to some patients. The practice intends to urgently investigate the use of an additional local number in addition to our 0844 number

The law behind the current NHS Changes is still weaving its way through Parliament but where are all the amendments and changes at the moment. The coalition wanted GPs to take responsibility for £60bn of NHS funds - now there will also be hospital consultants and nurses involved. The coalition wanted competition to be extended to more NHS services - now competition will be limited to quality and not price. The coalition wanted reduced bureaucracy and fewer managers - now more managers to look into perceived risks. The coalition wanted an increased role for the private sector - now all providers to be assessed for their suitability to run services. And what is happening locally: The Practice has joined the Wakefield Alliance Clinical Commissioning Group - the group is well established and starting to make changes. Wakefield District PCT has disappeared to be replaced by a cluster of PCTs covering Wakefield, Kirkless and Calderdale. The Yorkshire and Humber Strategic Health Authority

Call me shallow, but with a service name like that I could not resist blogging about it. Testing Times is a new free and confidential HIV testing service run by Yorkshire MESMAC. The aim of this service is to increase the uptake of HIV testing and reduce undiagnosed infection and prevention of transmission among men who have sex with other men. The HIV testing results are available in 20 minutes. To book an appointment ring the local Community Development Workers, Terrence Liboma and Mark Tyson on 01924 211 116 or attend their Drop-In sessions on the last Monday of every month, between 10 am and 7 pm at Yorkshire MESMAC, Suite 1, Trinity Buildings, Caldervale Road, WF1 5PE.

The Practice has for many years sought the view of our patients about the service that we provide and areas where we might improve. We have used the General Practice Assessment Questionnaire (GPAQ) in the past and are now using it again. We first used it in 2004 as a patient questionnaire that was required by the Quality and Outcomes Framework - click here for further details about the Quality and Outcomes Framework . In 2008 GPAQ was replaced by the national GP Patient Survey run by IPSOS MORI. As part of contractual changes in April 2011 we are now back to using GPAQ again to seek patients views. We are doing this in conjunction with our Patient Participation Group and are going to use the results from the questionnaire to highlight areas that need improving. GPAQ asks about receptionists, appointments, opening times, communication with doctors and nurses, continuity of care and enablement. We need at least 30 per clinician for the questionnaire to make statistical sense. We

This week has seen the publication of a National Diabetes Audit (click here for an executive summary) that has been reported that in some areas less than 10% of patients with diabetes are having all the necessary vital tests to pick up any possible complications from diabetes. Click here for the full story on BBC News. The nine tests involved are: BMI - to check persons weight HbA1c blood test - to check persons average sugar level over the last six weeks Blood pressure measurement Cholesterol blood test Kidney function blood test Kidney function urine test Retinal screening test Foot examination Smoking history The average across England and Wales is 50%. Kings Medical Practice has 489 patients over 16 yrs of age with diabetes and of these 367 had all nine tests - that is 75% and is significantly better than the national average. Our performance in this area is pretty good, but we would like to do better. We have various systems in place to alert patients to tests and examinations

This is the 100 th blog I have written since I first started blogging on the 4 th January, 2010 - which is just under one blog every two weeks! I have checked some other random numbers from the blog which are really, really interesting! 13,482 total page views of this blog 1,276 views in total from the USA 860 new patients since I started writing the blog 379 views of the most popular blog - electronic prescribing written in August 2010 90% of users use Windows 82 times that Pinderfields A&E has been closed to 999 ambulances in 2011 28 views from Turkey - the blog really does have an international readership! 10 trainees have been at the practice since Jan 2010 4 comments have been posted about the blog 2 babies born to doctors of the practice AND 1 new building!

Last week the Government launched the first ever bowel cancer awareness campaign and over the next nine weeks television, radio and newspaper adverts will encourage people to be clear about the symptoms of bowel cancer and to visit the surgery if you have any concerns. You can watch the TV adverts and listen to the radio ads again by clicking here . And clicking here will take you to links to the Beating Bowel Cancer website. At the local GP Commissioning Group we have discussed this and raised awareness of this campaign with local GPs so we are all ready and prepared! But remember the slogan - 'if you have had blood in your poo or looser poo for three weeks - we want to know!'

Tomorrow is change over day for doctors in training and we send a warm welcome to Dr Sarah Hilton, Dr Mohammed Rafique and Dr Christine Towers and a fond farewell to Dr Annette Kemshell. The practice is an approved GP Training Practice and we have doctors who are training to become GP's attached to us for 6 - 12 months at a time. Annette is moving to College Lane Surgery at Ackworth to complete her training and we wish her all the best.

There has been a lot of media coverage in this last week that implies that Army doctors might be called into staff Pontefract A&E overnight, but is this correct or is it just Chinese whispers? Pontefract A&E closed overnight at the beginning of November temporarily because of the difficulty Mid Yorks Hospital Trust had in recruiting middle grade doctors to staff all their A&E departments. The Trust has made it clear that it is a temporary closure and that they intend to reopen the department at night as soon as they have enough middle grade doctors to provide safe care for all their patients. Today the practice received an email detailing a review of the Trusts decision to close Pontefract A&E. An independent review was jointly commissioned by the Strategic Health Authority, Primary Care Trust and Mid Yorks Hospital Trust. The review concluded that the Trust had fully considered all reasonable options but suggested that it might be worth talking to the Army to find out

The British Heart Foundation has started promoting 'Hands-only CPR' for people who have not been trained in Basic Life Support. They have been running a TV advert campaign staring Vinnie Jones - the advert is really funny. To watch just the advert on You Tube click here . If someone has suddenly collapsed, is not breathing normally and is unresponsive they are in cardiac arrest. The first thing to do is to call 999 for help and then start pushing hard and fast in the centre of their chest to the beat of Sayin ' Alive by the Bee Gees until an ambulance arrives. This could save a life. For more information about this then click here for the British Heart Foundation website . Remember; Dial 999, then press Hard and Fast to the the beat of Stayin ' Alive!

Have you made any New Year resolutions to be do something positive about being healthy? Read on for help we can offer: Quit Smoking If you are a smoker you know it makes sense to Quit . The NHS Quit website can be found here but if you ask at reception we can direct you to local services for help stopping. We prescribe patches, gum, sprays, tablets and even nicotine inhalers to help you stop. Drink Sensibly After a boozy Christmas and New Year if you want to check if you are drinking too much then click here for the NHS Drinkaware website. The safe drinking limits advised by the NHS are 3-4 units per day for men - that is one and half pints of 4% alcohol beer and 2-3 units per day for women - that is one 175ml glass of wine per day. To find out how many units are in what you are drinking then the NHS Drinkaware website has a really good calculator - click here Lose weight If you want help losing weight you could contact the NHS Health Trainers in the surgery by speaking to reception