Over 65's can book flu-jab appointments now, and we shall endeavour to update you as soon as we have more information regards availability if the under 65's type. Thankyou for your understanding.
You may have seen in the national news that there is currently a supply issue with the under 65's flu jab which covers 'at-risk' groups in the 18-64 age range. This is affecting many surgeries and is beyond our control.
Over 65's can book flu-jab appointments now, and we shall endeavour to update you as soon as we have more information regards availability if the under 65's type. Thankyou for your understanding. We are pleased to let you know that e-consult is now back up and running following resolution of the NHS Wales IT issues from the last few days. We apologise again for any inconvenience and hope these events will not be repeated.
It should now be safe again to submit e-consults, but any queries/issues please get in touch. Thankyou. Following our facebook update earlier today, the NHS Wales IT problems have persisted over the day, and despite recently being told we were 'back online', this has not proven to be the case.
We would like to emphasise that this problem has not originated in the surgery, or indeed the e-consult system, but with the NHS Wales email systems which means we are currently not able to receive any e-consult submissions. For this reason, we have temporararily taken away the functionality from our website to avoid confusion. If you have used e-consult and submitted us a 'report' since Saturday, it seems we may not have received it, so if you have not already received a reply from us (5pm Monday 1st july), then you should assume we have not received it. In the above situaiton, please either contact the surgery by phone if urgent, or else await the resolution of this problem which is nationwide (we are not the only local practice with this issue), and then resubmit your query. Thankyou for your understanding at this frustrating situation which is beyond our control. We can confirm that until this problem today, and with the exception of a small number of cases, we have now dealt with hundreds of e-consults successfully, often within a few hours, and certainly by the next working day deadline, so please bear with us, as we believe this tool will continue to grow in function and value. We have now been live with e-consult since last Wednesday and have already had many of you use the service, with no issues that we are currently aware of. Many of the requests have related to extension sick-notes which is a very useful feature.
However it can do so much more, including self-help guidance, links to relevant local services, other administrative tasks as well as the facility to contact the clinical team in the practice. This could relate to symptoms you are experiencing, queries you have concerning your medication, or when you might want to update your GP about your progress since you were last seen. Any e-consults submitted will receive a response from us by the end of the 2nd working day, and in many cases your requests can be dealt with without needing to see or speak to a GP. e-Consult can be accessed from the Practice homepage, and we look forward to any feedback you have on this service, which should help to facilitate better access to your care. Click here for further info. As mentioned previously, we will be starting to use the e-consult online resource from the middle of next week, and more info can be found on the new e-consult info page. Please see below for a local Dementia Action event taking place this Wednesday (22nd May) in Pontypridd for patients, family members and carers. We have also created a resource page about local dementia services in the area on the Cluster Website, so please visit and see what is on offer. Please click the link below for various updates in our local cluster including Walking rugby, local resources and see the poster below for info on a Wellbeing event 15/5/19. Finally, you will notice we have added some direct links on our practice homepage to key local Cluster resources including online self-referral physio, local mental health courses, info on acute eye assessments and the aforementioned local activities update page which may be of interest. https://www.taffelycluster.com/news/wellbeing-event-wednesday-15519-updated-local-activities-and-revised-walking-rugby-poster The self-referral physio service is now available online, rather than having to ring, get stuck on hold/leaving messages etc. Click here to access the appropriate link on our sister site - Taff Ely Cluster.
Also, on that site are updated community resource listings. Plus, sexual health clinic details which have been recently revised. Finally, in the coming weeks, and in common with other practices in our cluster, we will be launching e-consult which will enable more clinical content between patients and the practice. More details to follow soon, but click here to see what this service can offer. We are pleased to announce the recent recruitment of our two new Clinical Pharmacists - Mr Jim Hall and Mr Dan Hay.
They will primarily be responsible for reviewing patient medications, to ensure safe monitoring and appropriate prescribing in the Practice. They will also be helping to run our chronic disease review clinics, especially for high blood pressure as well as anti-coagulation services. Going forward, if patients have queries relating to their medications, or require routine review, they will be directed to speak to one of our pharmacists first (rather than a GP, as both Dan and Jim are highly qualified professionals, and very experienced and so should be able to advise appropriately. They will offer both 'on the day' as well as pre-bookable phone appointments, and in certain situations you may be asked to come in to see them in surgery. We believe it will help to further modernise the service we offer, and improve patient care as well as increase access to the correct professional. We are also pleased to welcome Dr Jo Hyam to Eglwysbach, who has joined our team of GPs last week. After a temporary hiatus, we are now recommencing our coil clinics for those who wish to use this contraceptive option, please see the relevant page for further info. Please continue to visit www.taffelycluster.com for more updates that will directly affect our patients. As we near Christmas, firstly, just to highlight our opening hours in the coming weeks:
Eglwysbach Surgery will be open as usual except for on Bank Holidays Tonteg Surgery and Ynysybwl Surgery will both shut at 4pm on Christmas Eve, but are otherwise open as usual except for Bank Holidays. The practice would like to wish all our patients and their familes a Happy Christmas and a healthy New Year. We are also pleased to announce another new GP starting in January, Dr Jayne Forrester-Paton. Please see our updated privacy policy concerning our use of your medical information on our systems, and also an updated new patient registration form. Finally, please see the Taff Ely cluster website for updated community resources as well as NHS Wales educational videos on Diabetes which we hope will be useful for both patients with longstanding diabetes, but also those who are newly diagnosed. We can confirm after a national supply issue, we now have the adjuvant Flu jab back in stock for patients who are over 65.
The other types for younger age groups are still in stock also, so please contact your normal branch to arrange an appointment if you think you are eligible. For those of you who find it difficult to make it in during the week, we are running our 2nd Saturday morning Flu clinic on Sat 10th November in Pontypridd, so please ask about this if you think it might suit you better. |
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