We thought we should give you a little bit of an update on the current hot topics at Lisson Grove & Woolwell Medical Centres.

Covid Vaccinations:

If you are over 50, Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (Government letter) or in a High Risk group you should have already had at least your first vaccine via Plymouth Pavilions (if booked via us) or another centre depending on circumstances.

If you had your first vaccine in December or January you should have had invites for your second one. Second invites for February cohort being done over next few days.

Please do not ignore second vaccine invites as stock is allocated as per first doses so you may miss out completely if you do not take up your invite at the correct time.

If you haven’t received the invite, it has got lost or doesn’t work please book via 119 or the website ....

https://www.nhs.uk/.../coro.../book-coronavirus-vaccination/

....please note clinics are being constantly added to this website so if there is nothing local one day there maybe the next.

In Plymouth all aged based under 50s (currently 45-50 but may expand to younger groups) are being done via 119 or the website above, we are unable to book them in. Please only contact us if for some reason they say you are not eligible when you should be. There are multiple agencies involved in this hugely complex exercise so inevitably there may be some people that have missed invites or are not showing correctly on lists. If you feel this is you please contact us. Ideally via an Admin eConsult available on our webpage.

Phone lines:

Firstly apologies, we have had some technical issues with phone lines both on a local level, which was sorted quickly but also nationally that we had no control over but affected us. Further to that we are seeing an extremely high volume of calls to an unprecedented level. This is happening in surgeries all over the UK partly due to vaccine queries, partly due to catching up on routine appointments that may have been delayed due to covid, partly due to some other sectors with less capacity so people revert to GPs, partly people with Covid or Covid related illnesses, partly more people registering as they want their vaccine and many other reasons. Most calls generate appointments, tasks or extra work so the whole team is working flat out. Where possible we would ask that people submit via eConsult, this frees the lines up for people that do not have access to eConsult and allows us to manage the workload more efficiently.

New staff:

We are currently recruiting for some extra staff and hopefully soon you will seen or hear some new faces. This is to help with the growing workload and the additional pressures we are facing.

eConsult:

This is done via our website and allows you submit administrative queries, find self-help or request help on a clinical matter. If it is a clinical matter it mimics the questions that the Reception team would normally ask but does so in a more formal way and in extra depth. These are then processed and the best solution found, this may result in a simple communication back to you, an appointment made with the best clinician or request for further information. They are dealt with alongside phone calls but do not have a greater priority. The extra information requested very much helps in us getting you issue dealt with by the correct person as quickly as possible.

https://www.lissongroveandwoolwellmc.co.uk/

Access to surgery:

We are continuing to restrict access to the surgery to people with appointments or who need to physically drop off or collect something. This is to keep protecting staff and other patients and in the short term at least there is no intention to change that. Please use eConsult or phone to contact us.

Prescriptions:

We have a new internal method of managing prescriptions and hopefully soon you should see them processed a bit quicker. The quickest way to request is via the NHS App or SystmOnline as these go directly the processors and we do still take paper requests in the boxes at both surgeries.

Covid:

Whilst many people have now been fully or partly vaccinated and there are some encouraging figures around new cases Covid has certainly not gone away. Please be very careful and follow the guidelines and stay safe.

Finally thank you to everyone for their patience and good humour through what continues to be very difficult times for all of us regardless of our jobs and health.