Meadowside Medical Practice

Newsletter February 2005

Welcome to our new patients, and best wishes to ALL our patients for the New Year 2005. We would like to assure you that we endeavour to provide the very best in medical care that we possibly can.

The biggest change this past year in General Practice has been concerning the ON CALL and OUT of HOURS arrangements. Before, each of the GPs in this practice took it in turns to be available in the evenings until 10pm and on Saturday mornings, each week.

There was a vote amongst the country’s GPs and the majority chose to end the evening and night and weekend commitment; this is now provided by the Primary Care Trust. Doctors can volunteer to work for this service. It is based in Kendal and the doctors work in Lancaster – at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary GP suite; and Morecambe at the GP suite at Queen Victoria Hospital.

THE NUMBER TO RING FROM 6.30pm to 8am Monday to Thursday and 6.30pm Friday – 8am Monday (and also on Bank Holidays) is a Kendal number 01539 718999.

We are hoping the service is running efficiently, but we do urge you to let the PCT know if you encounter any difficulties in accessing the care. The number to ring in case of concerns is 01539 797861. Of course they would also like to hear about the good aspects too!

PRESCRIPTIONS

We have reluctantly decided to ask you to allow us 48 hours to prepare your prescriptions, from the time of your request. This allows us time to make a careful check on the safety of the medication, for your individual medical circumstances. However we cannot always provide you with all your requests (especially if you haven’t had medication for a while) and you might find that when you come to collect the prescription, there is a message asking you to discuss your health with us at your next appointment.

Sometimes drugs are withdrawn by the manufacturers for safety checks. For instance Rofecoxib, an anti-inflammatory drug often used in rheumatoid arthritis, has recently been withdrawn for safety reasons related to heart disease and high blood pressure.

The safety of all similar drugs is now under scrutiny. Sometimes there is a nationwide shortage of medication, for example, recently a commonly used eye drop preparation was out of stock here.

CO PROXAMOL

This is being withdrawn from availability for many reasons. We will be providing paracetamol instead and discuss your medication with you.

Meadowside List

We now have approximately 6800 patients on our list (this used to be called being on a doctor’s “panel”). This is actually a small practice, and we are the smallest practice in the area, with four full time partners. We are a long established training practice, and that is why you will meet medical students, house officers, registrars and nurse practitioners in training every day. We are grateful to our loyal patients that you are happy to help those in training, by telling us about yourself and your illnesses, so others can learn from you. It is an essential part of medicine so that illnesses are recognised.

6800 patients may seem a lot of people to look after every day. Those of us who have worked at Meadowside for years are constantly learning new things about families, generations and the history of the neighbourhood, in addition to learning about health and illness. We really like meeting new people and caring for extended families.

Lancaster has a tradition for being a friendly place with a strong community spirit, and our practice is proud to reinforce this.

Quality and Outcomes FRAMEWORK - In December, a team inspected Meadowside from every possible aspect. We are pleased to hear very positive feedback, and the suggestions for improvements are being tackled; we will be able to enlarge on this when we receive the full report.

THE Joint Committee for Training in General Practice -

This team also visited the practice in December to assess our training programme for GPs of the future. Again, we were delighted that all the hard work we put in to training was recognised and commended

New Staff

Dr Rachel Cusden joined the practice in December as our Pre Registration House Officer. She trained at St Andrews in Scotland and Manchester. Last year she was based at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in the surgical unit. Whilst at Meadowside she is consulting in surgeries and at home. She will be doing some more video surgeries, and gaining as much general practice experience as she can, as she hopes to start the Lancaster based GP training scheme this year in August. Please tell her all about yourself in her surgeries as she has longer appointments and can really help solve difficult medical problems.

Mrs Audrey Shaw has started as a new receptionist with us and she is doing the job whilst being trained. Please welcome her and introduce yourself to her.

Welcome back to Vicky Jameson our Practice Manager, who is working part time, as she now has two little children - a girl and a boy - to keep her busy when off duty.

Nurse Practitioner Heather Pilling has increased her hours with us and is the brains and lead behind out new appointments system we call Book on the Day. You will be seeing her in consultation and she is also training Nurse Practitioners here at Meadowside. We value her extensive experience.

Thank you to Dr Anita Patey for her work from August to December at Meadowside as Pre-Registration House Officer. She has worked hard and earnestly and is now back in the hospital working on the medical wards. She is hoping to become a GP in the Leeds area in the future and we wish her all the best in the future, for the training is long.

Sister Christine Caton deserves congratulations as she has been awarded a Warwick Diabetes Certificate for diabetes care in practice. This is quite an achievement as it is a very hard examination to pass and she worked really hard for this. Her expertise will greatly help our patients who have diabetes.

Meadowside Equipment Fund is ongoing and has become part of our way of providing essential equipment for the benefit of our patients. We are buying a new foetal heart monitor and a blood oxygen monitor, and thank you for the enthusiastic response to the Christmas raffle, there were so many wonderful prizes donated. We are holding an Easter Raffle again this year and welcome prizes.

Mumps

The number of reported cases of mumps in the UK has doubled in the past 12 months and is now ten times the usual rate. Most cases have been in teenagers and young adults born between 1982 and 1990, when the MMR was not given as a second dose as we do now. The reason for the recurrence is because the virus circulates when not enough people have been immunised. Unfortunately there was a time when people were reluctant to have the jab, because there were UNTRUE reports of side effects. We have seen several people with mumps at the practice, it is a most unpleasant and painful condition. Schools and universities should now have been offered mass vaccination programmes. If you are unsure about what vaccines you have had, please ring and check, we keep records. We would urge you to make certain you are protected against measles mumps and rubella MMR for short.

Measles cases are likely to follow this year unless people are fully immunised. Those of us who had measles still remember how awful it was and how weak we felt, and that was as small children.

FLU VACCINES

We still have some people who haven’t been for their influenza vaccine yet. This is still valid – DO GET PROTECTED! IT’S NOT TOO LATE! Flu is still going around (apparently in Europe too). Please telephone the surgery to make an appointment.

PRACTICE SUGGESTIONS

Just a reminder that we welcome any suggestions and feedback (negative or positive!) regarding your thoughts about the practice. We do strive to provide you with the best possible service.

TSUNAMI APPEAL

Thank you everyone for the immediate generosity towards the tsunami appeal. We continue to donate money for this worthy cause. It is an unbelievable world tragedy. There has been an overwhelming response in this country and world-wide. We continue to think of those affected and we pray that everything that can be done is being done, to relieve the suffering of the survivors.

LET US remember too, that most disasters in the world do not get a high media profile and therefore little or no money. Many African countries struggle to raise charity money. There is much we can be doing, even if it is simply raising awareness.

We believe ALL HUMAN LIFE IS WORTHY AND ALL in NEED should be provided for.

REPORTS

Meadowside Medical Practice now respectfully requests that payment is made IN ADVANCE for private reports, forms and medical examinations. This is because some important reports have not been collected and there are outstanding fees. Cheques are payable to MEADOWSIDE MEDICAL PRACTICE.

Thank you for your co-operation in this matter.