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 the ring 111 for advice. Our opening times over the Christmas period are: Friday 20/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 21/12 -Extended access surgery  8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 22/12 - closed  Monday 23/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Christmas Eve - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Christmas Day - closed Boxing Day 26/12 - closed Friday  27/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday 28/12 -Extended access surgery  8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 29/12 - closed Monday 30/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Tuesday 31/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm New Years Day - closed Thursday  2/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Friday 3/1 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Saturday  4/1 - Extended access surgery  8.00 am - 11.00 am. Sunday 5/1 - closed Monday 6/1 - 8.00 - 6.30 pm There are other services available when we are closed that might be able to help you. LLoyds Ph

NHS England has published high level indicators about GP practice outcome data. The data is meant to give information about the quality that practices provide. NHS England would like to publish data about patient experience, patient outcomes and patient safety. The data comes from previously confidential data that practices and commissioning groups had access to. The data has been released because NHS England has a commitment to openness and transparency. Click here for a direct link to the information on NHS Choices website about Kings Medical Practice. However there are some real issues with the data that has been published: Some of the data is quite old e.g. the GP patient experience data comes from the 2011 GP Patient Survey The data has no context about it e.g. there is data about the number of referrals to outpatients per 1000 population but no hints as to whether high referrals are good or bad The data is presented in a random way e.g. the first screen you get is the whet

The practice is participating in the national shingles immunisation programme. 90% of all adults in the UK have had chickenpox. After chickenpox, the virus stays inside your body and can recur as shingles later in life. Even those people who had a mild case of chickenpox as a child, or didn't have any obvious symptoms may still be at risk of developing shingles. Although not everyone develops shingles as we get older our immune system weakens which increases the risk of getting shingles. Unfortunately shingles in older people tends to be more severe than in younger people. This is why the Department of Health has introduced a recommendation that shingles vaccine should be offered to people aged 70 years. They have also introduced a catch-up programme which initially targets people aged 79 years of age. You can find more details about the national programme if you click here . The practice is writing to people who were 70 or 79 on the 1st September to invite them to ring and mak

The practice is taking part in a new NHS service that will help us to spot whether you need more help to manage your health. The service is called 'risk profiling'. Using information from your health records, a secure NHS computer system will look at any recent treatments you have had in hospital or at the surgery, and any existing health problems that you have, and alert the practice to the likelihood of any possible future hospital admissions. The clinical team at the surgery will use this information to help you get early care and treatment where it is needed. The information will only be seen by practice staff who are bound to keep your information confidential. NHS security systems will protect your health information and guarantee patient confidentiality at all times. If you don't want the information contained in your records to be used in this way then please contact our practice manager who will arrange that your records are not included in this new service. To

If you use our Online services to make appointments, order repeat prescriptions and send us messages you can now do it via an app for iPhones and iPad. The app is free and can be downloaded from Apples App store. Search for 'SystmOnline' or click here to go direct to the app. Our software supplier says that they are developing an Android version but of course Apple got there first (as usual?).

Its that time of the year again when we start our 'flu vaccination campaign. We are holding 'flu vaccination clinics on the following three Saturdays - September 28th, October 5th and October 12th. 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 01924 223909 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

Every six months the NHS carries out a survey of patients' experience of the access and quality of care they receive from their local GPs. The results are now out and can be found if you click here . This time NHS England West Yorkshire Area Team has selected five questions for analysis: Generally how easy is it go through to someone at your GP surgery on the phone? We scored 96.9% with the local average being 73.9% How convenient was the appointment time you were able to get? We scored 96.5% with the local average being 91.8% Overall, how would you describe your experience of making an appointment? We scored 88.3% with the local area being 74.8% How satisfied are you with the hours that your GP surgery is open? We scored 92.9% with the local average being 69.5% Overall how would you describe you experience of your GP surgery? We scored 92.8% with the local average being 85.4% These results are pretty good with the practice scoring significantly above the local average f

The practice is an approved GP training practice and we train doctors to become GP's. They spend either six or twelve months with us and they swap over in August and February of each year. This week we have said goodbye to Dr Amina Vandu-Chikolo, she has now successfully completed her training and is working as a locum in Leeds, Dr Kate Heels who has gone to A&E at Pinderfields and Dr Sarah Graham who has gone to Psychiatry at Fieldhead Hospital. Dr Emma Still finished her training at the end of July but is staying on with us to do Dr Rebecca Hardings maternity locum. We still have Dr Mou Sinha and Dr Mohammed Shaikh with us. They are both working part-time and I know they will eventually finish but they have been with us for ages and I am not sure when they will complete their training! Joining us are Dr Danielle Kirkham, Dr Serena Alim and Dr Bing-Chiu Pang - who are in their third year of training and will be with us until July 2013 and Dr Thangiarubian Thurairajah (kno

I was browsing the internet this week (like you do ...!) and came across this guide to getting the most out of your appointment with your doctor or nurse. Click here for the link. The guide is not rocket science, it just details the three steps that we train doctors and nurses to follow when seeing patients. Step 1 - saying what you want to get out of today. You know why you have come today but have you thought about what you expect or want to happen? For example do you want a diagnosis, reassurance that it is not something serious (if so what are you worried about most), to see a specialist. It is really useful to let your doctor know. Step 2 - saying what you think is going on. If you have any thoughts about what is causing the problem, do say so. It really helps the conversation with your doctor if you share these ideas. Step 3 - agree a plan of action and what to do if things don't go as expected. Before you leave are clear about what happens next? Do you know wh

At the practice we are just about to start taking part in the Productive General Practice improvement programme. The programme is designed to help general practice continue to deliver high quality care whilst meeting increasing levels of demand and diverse expectations. At the core of the programme is looking at how we do things and how we can change the way we do things so that we can release time to invest in improving patient outcomes and staff well being. The Productive General Practice website can be found by clicking here . I went to an introductory workshop for the programme about three weeks ago and one of the ice breakers was how to fold a T shirt in two seconds - if you click here you can see a YouTube demonstration of how to do it! I have just come back from a two week break in Italy. We hired a car and before I went I got my old driving licence out. I have had it since I passed my driving test when I was 17 (passed first time!) and I still have the old style pape

The practice has computerised clinical records and the software we use is called SystmOne - click here to go to their website. SystmOne is a computerised clinical record that lots of GPs and other healthcare departments and units use. Currently GPs can see all the information that is entered onto your clinical records by non-GP units but non-GP units can only see data on your GP record if the non-GP departments ask for a 'share' of your records. The way that patient data is shared between different departments and units on SystmOne is about to fundamentally change so that it is much more explicit who patients have given consent to view and share their records. The new system is called the Enhanced Data Sharing Model (eDSM) and it will allow staff the opportunity to record patient's explicit consent for sharing their records. With eDSM patients will be asked whether they would like to Share In and Share Out at each care service or department they are registered with. P

If you have been into the surgery this week you might have come across a couple of new faces. Last week Helen, who is a fourth year medical student at Newcastle joined us for four weeks and Rachel who is an Open University nursing student joined us for eight weeks. Rachel is employed as a Healthcare Assistant at St James in Leeds as is undergoing training to become a registered nurse via the Open University route for Healthcare Assistants. It is a really good way to become a registered nurse because you are in a job and get paid and currently Health Education Yorkshire and Humber pays for your training - its brilliant! To find out more about how the OU helps people to become registered nurses click here . And we also have two new apprentices, Justine and Olivia, who have joined us to train in the admin role of providing healthcare. Apprenticeship train young people in work-based training programmes that lead to national recognised qualifications. To find out more about apprentices c

The NHS has allowed the prescription of gluten free foods to people with coeliac disease for some time. People with coeliac disease need to have a gluten free diet otherwise they will become ill. Gluten is present in flour but there are gluten free substitutes available. The NHS advices that staple gluten-free foods should be available to all people diagnosed with coeliac disease. This includes bread/rolls, crackers and crispbreads, flour/flour type mixes, pasta and pizza bases. But in line with healthy eating and advice from Coeliac UK (click here for a link) , Wakefield CCG has advised all Wakefield practices to no longer prescribe cakes/cakes mixes, biscuits and sweet products. People who wish to include these products in their diet are being advised to buy them from the supermarket instead. It is accepted that commercial gluten free products are more expensive that equivalent standard gluten containing products but even Coeliac UK accepts that there is no justification for the

Over the last couple of weeks GP's have been blamed for increasing numbers of patients going to Emergency Departments, the difficulties of the new out of hours service (111) and the pressure put on hospitals because 'allegedly' patients are not being able to see their GP. The clear implication in all this is that GP's are not seeing enough patients! Last year, in Wakefield, 93,419 patients went to the Emergency Department at Pinderfields. In the previous year there were 87,814 attendances and the number attending in 2012/13 increased by 6.3%. At Kings Medical Centre in 2011/12, 57,987 patients had appointments with either a doctor or nurse in the surgery. Last year that number was 62,295, that is an increase of 7.4%! The number of patients coming to our practice is increasing at the same time that the amount of money allocated to GPs to care for patients is set to fall. The Royal College of General Practitioners has predicted that the budget to care for patients wil

RightSteps Wakefield is a service that aims to provide fast acting psychological treatments, sometimes called talking therapies, for people with common mental health problems such as low mood, anxiety and stress. They have a variety of ways of helping people from group work to individual cognitive behavioural therapy and from employment support to guided self help. All the treatments that RightSteps Wakefield offer are recommended by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and are provided by appropriately trained practitioners. To find out more details about RightSteps Wakefield click here. People who would like to benefit from talking therapies can be referred by their GP or other members of the practice team, but you can also self refer. If you think you would benefit from talking therapies you can telephone or pop down to their office in Wakefield between 11 am and 7 pm, Monday to Friday. Their telephone number is 01924 234 860 and their office is on the 3rd floor of Gro

On Friday, I went to the Royal College of General Practitioners new London headquarters to be presented with the Fellowship of the College. A Fellowship is how the College recognises the achievements of its members and is a great accolade. I felt very proud to be honoured in such a way. At the College I donned the Fellows gown and was presented with a certificate by the President. Interestingly, there were three other David Browns, but my citation was all about my work as a GP Trainer, GP Training Programme Director and sitting on the board of Health Education Yorkshire and Humber and NHS Wakefield CCG. However, my achievement is not mine alone and I would not be able to do what I do with out the support of my wife, Sue and colleagues at Kings Medical Practice, Normanton. Sue has always supported me (although she claims to be long suffering). Sue is the rock from which all my achievements in my work have sprung. In the practice we have always supported doctors doing other clin

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this weekend we had almost a complete IT system failure. The practice is completely paperless and all clinical work and administration tasks are done via our clinical computer system. The practice no longer has a server on site, instead our system uses a remote server and everything is connected to this remote server via a private NHS net broadband connection. On Tuesday we noticed that the computer system was running slowly. It was taking one to two minutes to load a patient record compared to the ten seconds it takes normally. Not only was it taking the computer ages to load records it also took ages to print prescriptions, look at letters and indeed do anything at all on patients computerised clinical record. Our IT help desk was called and eventually at 3.30 pm they identified that there was a fault with our NHS net broadband connection. There are two connections, a primary connection at speeds up to 8 Mbps and a back-up one that works at 1 Mbps. The

The NHS announced this week a MMR catch up programme aimed at unvaccinated children aged from 10 - 16. The MMR vaccincation catch-up campaign aims to prevent further measles outbreaks following the recent widely publicised outbreak in Wales. A catch-up programme is required to protect a generation of children, born between 1997 and 2003, who are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against measles. Low levels of vaccination in this generation were caused by an unsubstantiated scare about the MMR vaccine. The scare was based on an entirely discredited piece of research that claimed that MMR could trigger autism . Targeting this group of children, estimated to be around one million, will help reduce the potential population in which further measles outbreaks could occur. Full details of the programme have not been worked out yet but if your children have not been vaccinated against MMR ring us and book an appointment. Its that easy!

There was an interesting paper and editorial in the BMJ at the weekend ( click here) about infant sleeping. It was a paper comparing whether an intensive educational support programme for new mums compared to normal care made any difference to baby sleeping patterns and new mums health and well being. Some of the data from the paper just confirmed what I thought was pretty obvious. Infants at 12 weeks of age woke on average 9 times a night and at 12 weeks of age the longest period of uninterrupted sleep was 84 minutes. Infants not sleeping is normal and it takes times for infants to develop a normal sleeping pattern. What new parents need to know is that sleep is a developmental process that is biologically driven to mature during the first years of life, and that sleep behaviour and development vary greatly between individuals.. Their sleep patterns begin to consolidate into a night and day time pattern from about 3 months and their body clock matures between 6 and 12 months. Nigh

We have had two vaguely warm days but if you are planning to escape the rain in the summer and go somewhere hot 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. The practice is a registered Yellow Fever Vaccination centre. We also provide Yellow Fever Vaccinations and Travel Advice to patients who are not registered with the practice. Our travel advice servi

I am sure that by now you will have had a large leaflet through your door about changes to local hospital services in Wakefield and Pontefract. The public consultation started on the 4th March, 2013 and will run until 31st May, 2013. A summary of the proposed changes are: Pinderfields would become a major centre for: Complex medical care Emergency and complex surgery Intensive care Consultant-led birth unit In-patient children's services Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals would become centres for planned care and surgery with A full range of diagnostic tests, to help diagnose what is wrong with patients More operations, including planned orthopaedic surgery such as knee and hip replacements To find out more and read the consultation documents in full click here for the Meeting the Challenge website. And to complete the online consultation document click here . So, if you have read the documents and want to say something then do it now!

The surgery is only closed on the statuary bank holidays (Good Friday and Easter Monday) - we are otherwise open as normal. If you need a doctor when we are closed ring 111 and your call we be answered by the 111 team. Our opening hours over the Easter Weekend are: Thursday 28th March - open as normal. Surgery closes at 6.30 pm Good Friday - 29th March - Closed Easter Saturday - 30th March - Pre bookable surgery from 8 am to 11 am Easter Sunday - 31st March - Closed Easter Monday - 1st April - Closed Tuesday - 2nd April - Surgery opens as normal at 8.00 am Local pharmacies can give you some advice and help. They are all open on Easter Saturday as normal and some of them are open over the bank holiday as well: LLoyds, 6-8 High Street, Normanton, 893915 - Open on Good Friday and Easter Monday, 10 am to 4 pm Exel Chemist, 56 High Street, Normanton, 896777 - Open on Good Friday 9 am - 6pm, Easter Sunday 11 am - 4pm and Easter Monday 9 am to 6 pm. I wish you all a Happy Eas

111 is an NHS service that provides urgent medical help for non life threatening situations. Calls to 111 are free from both landlines and mobiles. It is available 24 hours a day and if you are anxious about ill health or uncertain about what to do then 111 staff can give you a full range of advice from self care at home, to arranging an out-of-hours consultation or sending for an ambulance. On dialling 111 a team of fully trained advisers and experienced nurses will assess your condition and direct you to the local service that can help you best, when you need it. Click here for a link to 111 website. In the past if you dialled the surgery telephone number it would automatically transfer you to our Out of Hours provider - the new service is not able to do this and unfortunately we now have an answering machine advising you to ring 111. Surgery is open for calls 8.00 am to 6.30 pm, Monday to Friday - if you require advice or assistance outside of these hours dial 111 - its

The practice has just signed up to allow Novus Health to run a clinic in the surgery to provide hearing aids and assessment of patients with age related hearing loss. The service is for people over 55 years of age with uncomplicated age related hearing loss who would like to try a hearing aid. The service is completely free and fully funded by the NHS. This service enables GPs to refer patients to an audiologist for assessment of age related hearing loss and provision of hearing aid(s) where appropriate. The service is being held at other locations across the Wakefield District. Below is a list of all the locations where the service is available: Ash Grove Medical Centre, Knottingley College Lane Surgery, Ackworth Elizabeth Court Surgery, Airedale Kings Medical Centre, Normanton (including evening appointments) Ossett Health Village, Wakefield Warrengate Medical Centre, Wakefield Click here for the link to more information on the Novus Health website. Novus Health is

If you have a sudden eye problem such as a sticky eye, something in your eye or you think you may have an infected stye then 24 opticians across Wakefield are offering to see you and assess your eye as part of the Wakefield PEARS scheme - Primary Eyecare Assessment Referral Service. The opticians in the scheme can assess and treat your for a sudden eye problem. If the optician finds your eye problem is more complicated and needs a referral to hospital then the optician is able to do this as well. It means that if you have an acute eye problem, instead of coming to see a GP at the practice you can go and see your optician. Both of the Normanton opticians are participating in the scheme and if you click here you can find a list of participating opticians across the Wakefield District.

On 1st April, NHS Wakefield CCG will become the local NHS organisation that commissions (ie buys) services for patients across the Wakefield district. I am a board member of NHS Wakefield CCG and the board has decided to hold our first public board meeting in the meetings room at King's Medical Practice on Tuesday 19 February between 1.00 pm and 4.00 pm. We decided to hold it in Normanton because the CCG is different from the NHS organisation that commissioned NHS services before, the CCG is very clearly lead by GPs, Normanton is at the centre of the district that we serve and besides we are expecting lots of people to attend and the headquarters of the CCG does not have a room that is big enough! The papers for the board meeting are available to read from the CCG website - click here for the papers and board members will be available from 12.30 pm for informal discussions. Questions relating to the agenda may be submitted in advance to ckwcommunications@wdpct.nhs.uk So, if

We are a GP Training practice and regularly have doctors attached to us who are training to become GP's. In the practice we now have four approved GP Trainers - Dr Brown, Dr Walsh, Dr Harding and Dr Deeley. 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, 6th February. We are saying goodbye to Dr Matharu (Kings Medical Practice was her second post on a three year training programme and she has gone to do Psychiatry in Wakefield) and Dr Chafer (she has now finished her training and is looking for a job!). The doctors who are replacing them are Dr Kate Heels and Dr Sarah Graham. Dr Katie McGowan is still on maternity leave and will be back for two weeks in March to complete her training. Dr Emma Still and Dr Amina Vandu-Chiklo will be with us till the end of July, and Dr Mou Sinha and Dr Mohammed Shaikh are now working part-time and I have no idea when their t

The Practice has for many years sought the view of our patients about the service that we provide and areas where we might improve. Following suggestions in last years survey we have increased the number of staff at reception and we have changed our telephone number to a local number rather than an 0844 number. We are in the process of conducting a survey again and are using the General Practice Assessment Questionnaire. The Questionnaire asks about about our receptionists, appointments, opening times, communication with doctors and nurses, continuity of care and enablement.  We have piles on our desks, piles in the waiting room but if you would like to fill one out electronically then click here to download the questionnaire . Please then either email it to Christine Sanderson ( click here for email address ), hand it into reception or put it in the post. Many thanks in anticipation!

We have just switched on our new telephone number today. We have listened to what patients have said about our 0844 number and that has been replaced by a new local number - 01924 223909. When you 'phone the practice the options you get are the same though: Press 1 for appointments Press 2 for home visits and urgent enquires Press 3 for repeat prescriptions Press 4 for test results Or hold for the operator  I have also 'de-flashed' our website - click here to see the new look website. The introductory screen splash on the website was a really switch bit of flash with animated pictures, animated icons and some sounds to go with the animations. I loved it although I do realised some people found the animation intensely annoying. But the big drawback about our Flash is that you cannot see websites that use it on iPhones, iPads and some other smart 'phones. So it has had to go. I have got rid of it and replaced it with a similar animation that will run on iPhones a

This is a picture of me in my consulting room: I don't have a tie on because it helps to reduce the spread of infections and keeps patients safe? Can you spot anything else in the picture that helps reduce the spread of infections - I can see at least seven things! Healthcare associated infections (HCAI) can occur from contacts with patients in general practice. They are caused by a variety of 'bugs' and can have a large impact on patients. It is estimated that 300,000 patients a year in England acquire a HCAI as a result of care within the NHS. In 2007, meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections and Clostridium difficile infections were recorded as the underlying cause of, or a contributory factor in, approximately 9000 deaths in hospital and primary care in England. So, preventing HCAI is an important way to promote patient safety. In my surgery consulting room picture the things that are helping reduce HACI are: 'Bare bel

We have lots of help to make sure you can keep your New Year resolutions to keep healthy! Quit Smoking 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 or ringing 01977 665717. If you are very overweight (a BMI ov