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 111 for advice. Our opening times over the Christmas period are: Monday 21/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Tuesday 22/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Wednesday 23/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday 24/12, Christmas Eve - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Friday 25/12, Christmas Day - closed Saturday 26/12 - closed Sunday 27/12 - closed Monday, Boxing Day Holiday 28/12 - closed Tuesday 29/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Wednesday 30/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm Thursday, New Years Eve 31/12 - 8.00 am - 6.30 pm New Years Day - closed Saturday  2/1 - closed Sunday 3/1 - closed Monday 4/1 - 8.00 - 6.30 pm In order to ensure that we have sufficient appointments to see people who cannot wait till after the holidays we have organised our appointments so that you cannot make any routine appointments during the Christmas and New Year weeks. T

As a practice we are constantly reviewing our prescribing to make sure that are patients are receiving the most appropriate treatment for their medical condition and that we are making the best use of limited NHS funds. Practices in Wakefield have recently review the need to issue paracetamol on prescription when it is only taken on a 'when required' or short term basis. Practices in Wakefield have agreed not to prescribe paracetamol for short courses as patients are able to purchase smaller quantities over the counter form local pharmacies of supermarkets considerably cheaper than it is for the NHS to fund the same amount on prescription. It is shocking but the cost to the NHS is roughly three times what it costs to buy paracetamol from supermarkets. This will mean that the money we would have spent on paracetamol can be used to improve healthcare services locally. This decision has been made by all 40 practices across Wakefield. If you have any questions about this chan

Its a bit like buses, you can wait ages and then two come along together. This week we have been told about how we can access two online support networks to help people with mental health issues. The first is Big White Wall, click here for the website, and this give peer support for people over 18 with mental health issues. There are outcome measures to show that people who use this for support improve. The support is moderated by Wall Guides so is a safe, anonymous and supportive environment to share concerns and start accessing help. Big White Wall is free to our patients but to access services you need a login. If after looking at the website you think it might be the thing that you might find helpful email me by clicking here and I will sort you our a login. The other is Kooth. This is aimed at children and young people under 16. It is to provide some support for common mental health problems found in children and young people. The site is moderated and has good outcomes for

Junior doctors are angry because a new contract will change their normal working week hours from 7 am to 7 pm, Monday to Friday  to 7 am to 10 pm Monday to Saturday. Time they work outside these normal hours are currently paid at enhanced rates. The BMA and Department of Health have been in negotiation for some time but talks broke down in the summer over threats that the health secretary will impose a new contract. The health secretary has said that only 1% of doctors will be worse off, but that is largely because they will protect the pay of junior doctors for the next three years. After that time it is unclear what will happen but the BMA has said that 75% of doctors would be worse off and new junior doctors certainly would be worse off. With these changes the Department of Health is trying to make it cheaper for hospitals to have more junior doctors working unsocial hours and at weekends. But they already do weekend and unsocial hours so junior doctors think they are just tr

The Care Quality Commission have been undertaking a visit to Wakefields' health and social care services to check how systems work to protect children and young people who are at risk from abuse. As part of this visit we were visited on Thursday. The inspector was looking at how the system worked as a whole and how the practice worked as part of that system. I think I was able to demonstrate that we and the system were doing what we were supposed to be doing and I showed her several referrals and cases which demonstrated this. She was after examples of good practice and took away a document I had produced on optimising the use of our clinical computer system for Safeguarding but she did suggest a couple of things that we might like to start doing. Firstly we should start recording the names of people who attend with children not just 'mum' or 'auntie' and secondly we should be more particular in how we record what children and young people say during consultatio

The practice has recently been given a MyDiagnostick screening device for identifying patients with atrial fibrillation. Click here for details about the MyDiagnostick. The device screens patients for atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is an irregularity of the heart beat and patients with atrial fibrillation (shortened to AF) are at more risk of having a stroke. There is effective treatment available for AF to reduce the risk of patients having a stroke. Treatment for AF to prevent stroke is either warfarin or one of the new anticoagulant drugs that do not require regular blood tests like warfarin. Using the MyDiagnostick screening device is really easy. You grab either end of the device for a minute and wait for some lights to come on. Green is a pass and red is a fail. If you fail the test we would do a full ECG to confirm the diagnosis of AF and then discuss treatment with you. We only have one device but if you would like a screen then ask at reception or a nurse or d

Just a quick reminder that since the beginning of August we have been offering 'open surgery' sessions on four weekday mornings - every day except for Tuesday. If you ring for an appointment between 9.00 am and 10.30 am we will offer you a choice of appointments. If you feel you need to be seen on the day we will ask you if it is something the doctor can deal with over the ‘phone but if it is something you think you need to see a doctor in a consultation for, you will be asked to come and sit and wait in the surgery and you will be seen in that ‘Open Surgery’ session. When you check in at reception the computer gives you a number and we call people in turn. We are getting better at telling people when to come down so that hopefully you are not waiting from 9.00 am to 10,30 am to be seen. Routine appointments will be available to book up to six weeks in advance. If your condition requires immediate attention for example chest pain, breathlessness, etc then you will

We are delighted to announce that the practice has started training a Physician Associate. Physician associates (formerly known as Physician Assistant) is a rapidly growing healthcare role in the UK working alongside doctors in GP surgery. Physican Associates support doctors in the diagnosis and management of patients. They are trained to perform a number of roles including: taking medical histories, performing examinations, analysing test results and diagnosing illnesses under the direct supervision of a GP. To train as a Physician Associate students typically have a 2.1 degree in a biomedical science and they apply for an MSc Physician Associate course. We are working with Leeds University to train a Physician Associate. They will be with us every Friday for three terms and they start in the practice on Friday 25th September. We are looking forwards to working with them and training them.

We are holding 'flu vaccination clinics on the following three Saturdays - October 3rd. October 10th and October 17th. 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. In addition and annual nasal spray flu vaccine will be available for children aged two, three and four years old plus children in school years one and two. It is being offered to those children with a date of birth on or after September 1, 2010 and August 31, 2014. If you would like your child to get the nasal spray flu vaccine then make an appointment for one of our Saturday clinics. 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 betw

The surgery is closed on August Bank Holiday Monday 31st August, 2015. We are open for pre-booked appointments on Saturday 29th August, 8.00 am - 11.00 am, as usual but are closed on Monday 31st August. We reopen, as normal on Tuesday, 1st September at 8.00 am. We have our usual pre-booked evening appointments on Tuesday 1st September from 6.30 pm - 8.00 pm. If you need urgent GP assistance or advice over the weekend then dial 111. Have a good weekend and I am hoping it does not rain!

Phones seem to be working normally now. But said that on Tuesday! Keeping our fingers crossed !!!!

11.00 am The fault with the telephones has come back. When you ring us you may well get a constant engaged tone. I am told this is because we only have two incoming lines. BT are on with it but I apologise for any inconvenience this will undoubtedly cause. Will update again when fixed

Monday 24th August - 8.30 am Incoming phones not working this morning. When you dial you get a continuously engaged tone. This is because of a fault in the system. We have notified our telephone provider and they are working on it. In the meantime if you want an appointment this morning if you come to reception before 10.30 am this morning you will be seen! Update - 4.30 pm . Our telephone system provider came in this morning and checked that it was not a problem in the practice. At 11 am they had diagnosed a fault with BT lines. They swapped some cables about so that we could receive incoming calls but not make any outgoing calls. We have a 4 hour response service with BT and they have just been into the surgery. There is not a fault in the surgery the problem is in the exchange. They have switched some of the lines round so that we can both receive calls and make out going calls but we have much fewer lines than we normally have. Update Tuesday 25th August - 8.15 am . Still prob

I have just updated our website. Click here for the new site. I have made a new splash picture and  updated a few of the pages. The main page I have updated has been the staff page. Click here for the updated 'Doctors and Staff' page which has all our new permanent doctors together with new pictures of practice doctors and nurses. Main complaint from staff is that everyone looks older - well the last pictures were taken in 2008 so what do you expect ... But if you do find any other errors then please let me know - click here to email me directly.

As August approaches our current GP trainees move on and we welcome new GP trainees to the practice. But this year we have lots of other staff changes as well: Dr Barber, who has been with the practice since 2002 is retiring at the end of July having been on long term sick leave. Dr Holborough left the practice at the start of July and has moved to work with his wife. Dr Samara left early in July on maternity leave and had a little girl yesterday - congratulations! Dr Safraz is leaving at the end of July to take up a partnership in Halifax. Dr Serena Alim who was a GP trainee with us until July 2014 has joined us from 1 st July. Dr Sulthana Ahmed and Dr Ronnie Banerjee who are both currently GP trainees with the practice have passed all their exams and will join the practice in August 2015. Dr Ali Damji who is a GP Commissioning Fellow leaves us at the end of July and joins a practice in Ossett. And finally we welcome four new GP trainees in August; Dr

Dr Barber has been on long term sick leave since January, 2015 and is retiring from the practice at the end of July. Dr Barber was a GP registrar in the practice in 2001 and joined the practice in 2002. Dr Barber was a gynaecologist before she joined the practice and we will miss her wealth of expertise in managing patients with gynaecological and contraception problems. To mark her leaving we are inviting staff and patients to meet Dr Barber on Wednesday 12 th August at 1pm for a cup of tea and cakes. The practice will miss Dr Barber and we wish her well in the future.

For the last few months we have been trying various things to improve access to GP appointments and from Monday 3 rd August we are introducing ‘Open Sessions’ on every weekday morning except Tuesday. If you ring for an appointment between 9.00 am and 10.30 am we will offer you a choice of appointments. If you feel you need to be seen on the day we will ask you if it is something the doctor can deal with over the ‘phone but if it is something you think you need to see a doctor in a consultation for you will be asked to come and sit and wait in the surgery from 9.00 am  and you will be seen in that ‘Open Surgery’ session. Routine appointments will be available to book up to six weeks in advance. If your condition requires immediate attention for example chest pain, breathlessness, etc then you will be offered an appointment with the ‘on-call’ doctor who may wish to speak to you in the first instance to assess how quickly you need to be seen. We hope by doing this we wi

How we use your information This privacy notice explains why the Kings Medical Practice collects information about you, and how that information may be used.  As data controllers, GPs have fair processing responsibilities under the Data Protection Act 1998.  This means ensuring that your personal confidential data (PCD) is handled in ways that are safe, transparent and what you would reasonably expect.  The Health and Social Care Act 2012 changed the way that personal confidential data is processed. Therefore it is important that patients are made aware of, and understand these changes and that you have an opportunity to object if you so wish and that you know how to do so. Health care professionals maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received within the NHS (e.g. NHS Hospital Trust, GP Surgery, Walk-in clinic, etc.).  These records help to provide the best possible healthcare. NHS health records may be processed electronically, on

I blogged at the end of March about how we were changing our appointments system so that if you ring and request a same day appointment the receptionist will ask for details of your problems and a doctor will call you back. Initially we planned for just the duty doctor to do that but it soon became apparent that it would better if more doctors were available to do this. Our system now is that in the morning all our trained doctors have the first hour of their surgery blocked off for telephone calls to patients who either want a same day appointment or have a problem that we can deal with other the telephone. Our receptionists can book patients straight into an appointment if that seems the most appropriate thing to do for example if a mum rings with a concern about a young baby or someone with asthma says they are having an asthma attack. But we are keen to speak to everyone who wants a same day appointment so that a trained doctor can assess whether you need to be seen and whether a

The surgery is closed on Bank Holiday Monday.  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 holiday week are: Friday 22nd May - open as normal. Surgery closes at 6.30 pm Saturday 23rd May - pre booked Saturday surgery 8.00 am to 11.00 am Sunday 24th May - closed Monday 25th May - closed Tuesday - 26th May - 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:  Exel Chemist, 56 High Street, Normanton, 896777 - Open on Sunday 11 am - 4pm and Bank Holiday Monday 9 am to 6 pm. I wish you all a Happy Bank Holiday

I have recently added the Google Translate button to our website. Click here for our home page.   When you click on the link a pop up opens which will convert the page to one of 90 languages! I have only added the pop up to the main pages on the website but when you click on the link all of that page is translated in the language of your choice, apart from any text which is on the website as pictures. We have also converted our practice leaflet into Polish - click here for the link. Of course the translation is only as good as the software so if you come across anything which doesn't make sense, especially in our Polish practice leaflet, then please click here to email me.

Next week is Dementia Awareness Week and locally Wakefield District Dementia Action Alliance, click here for their website, has a number of events planned. There are events planned every day but the two I thought I would publicize are the  Pop Up Awareness shop in the Upper Mall of the The Ridings which is there all week and a local event in Normanton. On Tuesday 1 -3 pm, at the Normanton Forget-Me-Not cafe at the Methodist Church, Wakefield Rd, there will be a Memory Bank session (holidays) at the cafe.

Just a quick reminder that if you are planning to go somewhere hot the practice provides a full travel advice service to our patients including travel vaccinations, travel health advice, 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 service is run by our nursing team and they would like you to fill in a Pre Travel

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 2nd April - open as normal. Surgery closes at 6.30 pm Good Friday - 3rd April - Closed Easter Saturday - 4th April - Closed Easter Sunday - 5th April - Closed Easter Monday - 6th April - Closed Tuesday - 7th 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 - 6 pm, Easter Saturday 7 am - 1- pm, Easter Sunday 11 am - 4pm and Easter Monday 9 am to 6 pm. I wish you all a Happy Easter.

The practice is experiencing a sustained increase in the number of people who want appointments and the number of people who say they need to be seen on the day they have rung up for an appointment. We regularly monitor the situation. Last week 2,520 patients had appointments with a healthcare professional, either a doctor, nurse or healthcare assistant. We look at at how the number of contacts to the practice is increasing and in the last three months of 2014 compared to a similar period in 2013 we saw nearly 6% more people (adjusted for list size growth). We also count the number of patients seen by the duty doctor. The duty doctor sees everyone who wants a same day appointment. It is busy if the duty doctor sees more than 50 patients in one day and over the last four weeks the duty doctor has seen 50 or more patients on 13 out of 20 days. The practice feels that this situation is just not sustainable. We are changing our same day appointments system so that if you ring and reque

The practice has recently extended the number of Online services that we have available. The Online services are available via a link from our website, click here or via the SystmOnline app from either the Apple App Store for iPhones and iPads or from Google Play Store for phones and tablets running the Android operating system. Not all the services that you can access via the website are available via the app though. SystmOnline is a web based service that is linked to the practice clinical record system, SystmOne. SystmOnline will allow you to: manage appointments - book, change and cancel view/request prescriptions add/change contact details send a registration request request access to your SystmOne detailed patient record and you can then view an audit of who has accessed your patient record view your medical summary and/or detailed patient record via SystmOnline view details of patholog

In August I blogged about a proposed cut to GP funding in Wakefield with thirty four surgeries in Wakefield and Pontefract having the threat of £3.8 million slashed from their budgets. Our Local Medical Committee (our union)  launched a petition asking NHS England to reconsider this. At the Conservative Party Annual Conference in September it was announced that all of the money that was at risk would return to general practice funding in Wakefield and that none of it would be used for other purposes. Since then the state of general practice has come to the fore and now politicians seem to have grasped that undermining general practice is not very sensible. Our Local Medical Committee has been in negotiation with NHS England and this week has announced that the reduction in funding we were expecting in April will be put off until October and that it is likely that practice funding will be broadly similar. From October there is still a threat to reduce practice funding but it is ce

From the 1st January NHS regulations have changed so that the practice can now register patients who live outside of our practice area without the obligation to provide home visits. The practice treats patients who live in Normanton, Altofts, Whitwood, Ackton, Old Snydale, Warmfield, Kirkthorpe and Health. For a map of our practice area click here . In order to register as an out of area patient you need to apply to the practice. Out of area registration is voluntary for the practice and we will only register to you it we think it is clinically appropriate. It would be clinically inappropriate to allow you to register if there was a high likelihood of you requiring home visits and you would be better registering with a new practice and developing a new relationship with another practice. But for most patients we are happy for you to still to register with us. If you move out of our practice area and would still like to be registered then let us know and we will make the necessary