You may have seen in the media that there is currently an international shortage of the bottles we use to collect blood samples which are then analysed in the hospital lab. This means there are dwindling stocks both in the surgery and with the usual sources who supply us. For this reason, we have been asked by the Healthboard to stop all non-urgent blood tests as the residual bottles will be needed for the most clinically important cases.
Our clinicians are aware of this situation and so will no longer be requesting blood tests except if patients meet strict criteria. As for those of you with tests already booked in future weeks, we will be reviewing these going forward, and you may be contacted to cancel the appointment, or perhaps will only have limited tests done, and / or blood pressures /other investigations where necessary. We can reassure you that as and when normal supplies return (this may be months away) we will endeavour to re-organise tests for those patients who missed routine checks etc. Unfortunately we now have 4 unplanned GP absences (as well as several of the admin team), and so would ask that you please only contact us with emergency issues for the coming days, as we are struggling to cope with both the 'pre-booked' as well as 'on-the-day' demand - with less doctors to share this work between, despite volunteers working extra hours etc and a limited number of locums we have sourced.
We appreciate this is not ideal however as you are all aware, the limitations/implications of the current Covid situation is proving very difficult for us to navigate, and so we are grateful for your understanding. Please be aware that if you, or a member of your family are self-isolating, then you need to make us aware before entering the surgery premises.
Anybody awaiting a test result (including all their household) should isolate until the result is back, and not attend surgery unless specifically told otherwise by the GP. It goes without saying that anybody who has tested positive should also be isolating for the appropriate duration, and inform the practice that this is the case if they are requesting any form of clinical review. It has been a long hard year for everyone, but we all need to keep following the government guidance to ensure everybody's safety, thankyou. Vaccine Status:
Patients who are registered with a GP in Wales will now be able to obtain their vaccination status via the digital NHS COVID Pass, after they have verified their identity using the NHS log-in. If someone detects an error in their vaccine record, they are asked to contact their Health Board to have these reviewed. Some may contact you directly if they have been vaccinated by the Practice, Health Boards will also pass these queries to you. Patients will also be asked to contact their GP practice if they find that they can’t use the NHS log-in because the postcode they are giving when signing up to NHS log-in does not match that held in their GP record, or if their first forename (only one forename is displayed on the digital COVID pass) is not correct. If these are updated in the GP record then it will take 5 days for this to be updated in the NHS log-in and in the COVID pass. More information about the NHS COVID Pass and vaccination status can be found here: Get the NHS COVID Pass to show your vaccination status for travel | GOV.WALES Community Vaccination Centres – WALK IN appointments available across CTMUHB from Monday 5th July All of Cwm Taf Morgannwg UHB’s community vaccination centres will hold walk-in clinics. You don’t need an appointment – you can just turn up for your first dose. The details: - Over 18s - First dose only - Please bring ID Vaccination centre details and opening times here: COVID-19 Vaccine Information - Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board Second dose appointments will not be affected by these walk-in clinics. Thankyou. As we enter the final weeks of our Covid Vaccine Programme, we have now successfully given over 6,000 jabs to our patients since January.
This has been achieved despite the challenging scenario of social distancing, as well as needing to triage every patient who makes contact with us, which has often resulted in our staff and GPs going 'above and beyond' this past year, and once again we thank them for their significant efforts. We now need to evolve things further this Summer as we move towards the 'new normal', in order to ensure ongoing patient safety. We have been increasingly seeing patients face to face in recent weeks, however we continue to manage unprecedented numbers of patient requests via both phone-triage and e-consult. In order to manage these combined pressures safely, as well as continue to increase our capacity for face to face appointments, (and the restart of some other additional services), we will now be introducing a cap to on-the-day phone triage queries, once all GP capacity has been filled for that day. From that point on in the evening, our staff will direct patients to self-care resources, e-consult or to try again the next day. They will only add call-backs onto the GP list if the patient feels their problem is an emergency that cannot wait until the following day. It will then be at our doctors' discretion, (based on the clinical information provided to staff) if these patients receive a call-back that evening - according to clinical need, in order to prioritise the most urgent requests. We appreciate your understanding with this change, and thankyou once again for all your support in what has been undoubtedly the most difficult year that any of us has known in the practice. We hope you and your families can enjoy the rest of 2021 as the situation hopefully continues to improve for us all. Stay safe! We continue to progress well with delivering our group 6 covid vaccinations. Loosely speaking, these are for the cohort who are usually eligible for an annual flu jab (those patients aged 18-65 with a chronic health condition). - Click here for formal guidance on whether you qualify (see table 3)
We have now contacted a majority of this group, but unfortunately are now finding increasing numbers where their contact details are not working, as well as some patients who are choosing to decline their jab at this point. On this basis, and to ensure we get as many done as possible before starting the second jabs in early April, we are now happy for anyone who thinks they are eligible (and who have not yet received a jab) - to call us at the surgery, and we will try and get you booked in before the end of March. Please inform anyone you know who might be eligible at this point, and we will continue to publicise with texts, phone-calls, posters and letters etc. For those patients aged 18-65 without chronic health issues, our understanding is that you will be contacted by the healthboard in order to receive a jab in a mass vaccination centre in the coming weeks and months. We can confirm we have now completed our over 65 patients (except for those we can't get hold of), and so if any of our patients who are over 65 have either not been in touch, or not heard from us by this point, then please let us know, and we will try and get you booked in ASAP.
We are now commencing Group 6 (the At-Risk group) which approximates to: patients who are over 18, and who are under 65, and who would normally receive an annual flu-jab. We will be getting in touch with all eligible patients as previously, thankyou for your patience. We have had a reduced vaccine supply recently, but we are hoping this will now pick-up in the weeks to come. It is our understanding, that all those patients who are aged 60-65 (and who are not in group 6/at risk group eg asthma/copd/diabetes etc) will be vaccinated in the mass vaccination centres, and they will be contacted by Cwm Taf Healthboard, not ourselves. Thankyou. From today, we have decided that rather than continuing to call each individual patient who is eligible for a Covid jab, we would like to invite eligible patients to call us up themselves (and therefore remove the risk of us missing you due to an out of date number). Additionally, we have multiple staff off work again (mostly due to covid) and so are struggling to continue to have designated staff sat calling patients all day at the present time as we have done since Christmas. Many have done extra hours every week since then.
So from today, if any of our patients who are over 65 (vaccine group 5) would like to book a vaccination, please contact the surgery, and we can get you booked in over the next 2 weeks or so, for which we should have adequate vaccine supply. If you know anybody who is eligible and not online then please let them know, we will be advertising this outside the surgery, as well as mentioning to those pts who call/visit in next few weeks. We will also continue (as best we can) to move through our patient lists in age order to ensure noone is missing out, and can confirm we have now booked in approx half of this age group already, so anticipate finishing group 5 by approx end of next week. Once all our over-65's are complete, we may also take a similar approach for our 'at-risk' patients (group 6) which will be a group loosely similar to those who are normally eligible for a flu jab, though we will confirm this at the time. Thankyou again for your ongoing support with this programme. If you are struggling to get through on the phones then please use our online contact form and we will get back to you with a date/time for your jab. We are pleased to confirm that we have now attempted to contact all our 'over 75's' patients, as well as all our 'shielding' patients, and have now begun contacting the over 65's for their covid jabs, and so are on target with Welsh Government plans for vaccine roll-out.
If any of our patients who are shielding, and/or over the age of 75, have not yet had their jabs, then please call us (it may be that we have an incorrect phone number etc), and we can try and get you booked in ASAP. This is a good opportunity to remind all patients to try and keep us up to date when you change your contact details, or it can make communications more difficult. This can be done via the contact form on our website. Please remember that patients aged 70-75 should have been jabbed in the Mass Vaccination Centres. We can confirm that the majority of our housebound patients have now also been vaccinated. |
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