We had another very successful Flu and Covid clinic again this year. All the staff very much enjoyed meeting up with patients and as always you were very generous, raising a total of £1187.00 on behalf of Sutterton Surgery Patient Equipment Fund, Patient Participation Group and Bereavement Group.

Thank you so much for your continued support both in your donations and purchasing books, knitting and supporting our raffles etc.,

We are humbled by your generosity and kindness.

Many, many thanks to Margaret, who will be cross she has a mention, but we really couldn’t raise so much money without her generosity.

I would also like to thank our dedicated Patient Participation Group who freely give their time to help me each year and provide the delicious home baking. We couldn’t do it without you.

Thank You, Karen

Thank you to all who came in and made crowns for the Coronation. As you can see on the left, you made them in all sorts of interesting shapes and sizes. Any one of them would befit King Charles on his Coronation.

We hope you had as much fun making them as our staff did wearing them! 

You are all winners to us, please call into the practice to collect your prize.

We would like to give a big thank you to everyone who came to the Flu & Covid clinic. It was lovely seeing you all again and getting into the community spirit. Together, we managed to do over 1000 vaccinations ready for the winter season. Thank you for all the kind words during the clinic. We really felt the warmth from the community despite these difficult times.

We also wanted to say a big thank you to all those who donated to our equipment fund as well. Whether it was in the raffle, buying food & drink, books & puzzles, knitted wear, etc. you all have made huge difference. Altogether, we raised an astonishing £728.90, most of which will be saved for our plans to free up more rooms for our doctors and nurses to use. Our Bereavement Group have received £230 of this as well that will go towards supporting those who may be struggling with the death of a loved one. Finally, thank you Margaret as well for providing us with the knitted wears and cakes, we couldn't have raised as much as we did without you. And thank you to John who provided us with the hall making this whole clinic possible.

Thank you to our Patient Participation Group (PPG) who held a couple of fund-raising events this year, pancake flipping back in February and a Quiz Night on Thursday 12 May. Thank you also to everyone who attended, we hope you had a good time!

Due to the hard work of the PPG and the help of Margaret, who helped us in knitting and baking cakes to sell at Christmas; we have managed to purchase a new ECG machine (right), which was badly needed. The new ECG uploads the report to the patient computer records without the need of manual scanning.  A real time saver.

We were unable to hold the Christmas Raffle because of Covid restrictions, but we are hoping to run the raffle in a couple of months.

We have seen many disruptions to daily life during the Pandemic, and fully understand frustrations and concerns you have over yours and your loved one's health. Therefore, as part of our collaboration with the Patient Participation Group (PPG), we have launched a FAQ section below to answer common questions and concerns brought to us by our patients. We hope this will go a a little way to explaining what's going on in the surgery and how hard we are working behind the scenes. 

If you want to get more involved and help improve our surgery, why not join our long-established PPG? Please contact our reception team if you might be interested. Or do you have a suggestion? Why not submit it in our suggestion box in reception, or contact us?

Now Covid restrictions have eased can you please explain to us how the appointment system works.

Patients continue to ring the practice from 08:15 each morning, for “on the day” appointments; you are offered an initial telephone appointment with a GP or an ANP (Advanced Nurse Practitioner) who determines if you need to be seen in a face-to-face appointment. Appointments continue to be available to book in advance (with relevant safeguards). Low risk Nurse appointments have continued throughout the Pandemic (with relevant safeguards).

Do the Advance Nurse Practitioners (ANP) refer to Dr Hughes if they are unsure of anything?

Always, cases are discussed with Dr Hughes throughout the day as necessary. Both Euan and Hilda advise the patient that they will be discussing/checking this with Dr Hughes. Euan and Hilda can perform all the services as provided by a GP. Both have a specific interest in cardiology.

Why do the receptionist ask such personal, intrusive questions when we book an appointment?

We ask the reason for the appointment to prioritise how urgent the need. For example, if the patient has chest pain, it may be better to ring 999. We ask the reason for all nurse appointments to ensure we allow the correct amount of time for each procedure. NHSE have also asked us to “map” these appointments i.e., blood tests, smears etc.

What happens with an abnormal blood result?

All blood results are read and reviewed by Dr Hughes. Patients can call into the practice to ask for their blood results or view them online. But, for any signifcant abnormal results, the patient will be contacted. If there is anything of significant importance this will be tasked to the reception staff to contact the patient with instructions from Dr Hughes (or Dr Hughes will contact them directly by telephone or by letter).

Furthermore, we have a software programme Eclipse which flags up any outstanding blood tests and the patient will be contacted to make an appointment.

Why do we still have to wear a face mask?

As of guidance from 09/06/2022, you no longer need to wear a face covering when entering the practice. However, we still advise patients to wear one if they have respiratory symptoms. 

Will there be a problem obtaining my medication as there is a problem with HRT in the news now?

We are continuing to do everything to obtain medications, but this is a national problem which is beyond our control.

Why is it 4-5 weeks for an appointment with Dr Hughes?

Dr Hughes is a single-handed GP who cares for 3600 patients, twice the national average. We are now in a crisis as the Government has not provided sufficient GPs. Dr Hughes retired last year but came back the next day to allow the surgery to operate and avoid closure. 

Below is a brief list of what Dr Hughes does in an average day:

Continues to see patients booked in for face-to-face appointments

Telephone appointments

Minor surgery and joint injections are carried out daily

50+ blood tests to report on

40+ queries e.g., medication, sick notes,

Dealing with online requests including general queries, appointments & medication

Acting on and replying to hospital and outpatient letters

Initiating medication from hospital

Writing to patient with results of x-rays etc.

Signing of 200+ prescriptions

Referrals

Teaching/advising ANPs

Eclipse software programme surveillance

Attend regular meetings with the CCG Clinical Commissioning Group, PCN Primary Care Network meetings. Although this is through Team’s meetings at present.

Crematoria work

Also involved in palliative care of patients with daily updates/meetings & home visits for the terminally ill patients.

Altogether, this equates to 10.5 hours daily, 5 days each week, 52 weeks per year. Dr Hughes is only off work at the weekends and Bank Holidays. However, during the vaccination campaign, he worked weekends too at the mass vaccination centre.