Press Statement - Nantwich and Rural Covid 19

A MESSAGE TO ALL OUR PATIENTS

Update from Dr Marquis and Dr Saggar

Thank you for your continued support, I know that you appreciate the importance of adhering to the advice in order to protect yourself, and to ensure that the practice team can maintain services. With this in mind you will understand the necessity for us to:

• Keep the door closed to the surgery only opening it as and when necessary.
• Request that you strictly adhere to the social distancing guidance (keeping at least 2 meters/ 6 feet distance from others), unfortunately not everyone has been doing this when coming to collect prescriptions – this is really important.
• Ask you to wait for your text message or telephone call to advise your prescriptions are ready for collection, please then come to the practice and wait outside the front door – please follow the social distancing guidelines properly do not huddle together at the door! We will bring your medication bag to the door, We need you to help us by bringing your own pen if you have to complete a prescription form and please if you have to pay, bring a card so we can manage a contactless payment.

We hope that everyone in our community recognises the seriousness of the current situation – it goes without saying that we need your help and support to enable us to maintain our services.

We would like to thank everyone for their support and patience in respect of new processes for prescriptions and appointments, we are really pleased that, with your help, we are ensuring that we can maintain services during this very difficult time.

As you would expect we have received a great number of prescription requests, and we are working through these as quickly as we can, in order to ensure we can maintain our services it is important that patients do not over order and stockpile their medications. We fully understand everyone’s concerns and we are committed to meeting your needs, our ability to do this will be greatly increased with your on-going support. It is also going to take us a little longer than usual to get your prescription prepared and ready for collection so it is really important that you are patient and wait for your text or telephone message before you come to the Dispensary. 

Dr Marquis and Dr Saggar

You will all be aware of the Coronavirus outbreak and we recognise how stressful and worrying it is for us all. Our sole aim is to try to ensure we can provide the services you need during this difficult time. In order that we can support those who need us most we are introducing the following changes in the way we work.

EVERYONE PLEASE FOLLOW THE GUIDANCE THAT HAS BEEN ISSUED https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/ 

DO NOT COME TO THE MEDICAL PRACTICE INCLUDING THE DISPENSARY IF YOU HAVE CORONAVIRUS SYMPTOMS THE LATEST GUIDANCE IS ALL INCLUDED IN THE LINK ABOVE!

APPOINTMENTS TO SEE THE GP

We will be seeking to deliver routine appointments by telephone/video consultation. Please telephone the practice to book these, DO NOT WALK INTO THE PRACTICE TO BOOK THESE APPOINTMENTS. If you already have a routine appointment booked with us we will contact you to establish if this can be carried out via phone/video or if you will need to come to the practice. Do NOT walk into the practice if you had an appointment previously booked and you have not had confirmation that you can come to the practice. We are working our way through all the pre booked appointments to advise any one with one of these appointments of the process as soon as possible. Our priority tomorrow will be to contact patients booked in on Monday (although we did reach a number of you on Friday) and to then start on Tuesday’s appointments and so on.
If you require an urgent appointment, please telephone the practice, patients will then be contacted by a Doctor by a return telephone call for further advice and next steps.
DO NOT WALK INTO THE PRACTICE TO BOOK THESE APPOINTMENTS.

APPOINTMENTS WITH THE PHARMACIST

We will be seeking to deliver routine appointments by telephone/video consultation. Please telephone the practice to book these, DO NOT WALK INTO THE PRACTICE TO BOOK THESE APPOINTMENTS. If you already have a routine appointment booked with us we will contact you to establish if this can be carried out via phone/video or if you will need to come to the practice. Do NOT walk into the practice if you had an appointment previously booked and you have not had confirmation that you can come to the practice. We are working our way through all the pre booked appointments to advise any one with one of these appointments of the process as soon as possible. Our priority tomorrow will be to contact patients booked in on Monday (although we did reach a number of you on Friday) and to then start on Tuesday’s appointments and so on.

NURSING TEAM APPOINTMENTS

Our Nursing Team will continue to provide appointments as per our usual procedure please telephone to book an appointment, where possible these will be telephone/video reviews with the Nurses. Baby Immunisations will continue but we ask that you attend with baby and only one adult, In other situations where a telephone appointment will not be appropriate such as a dressing change we will make suitable arrangements at the practice and advise you, again please telephone to book these reviews. DO NOT WALK INTO THE PRACTICE TO BOOK THESE APPOINTMENTS.

If you already have a routine appointment booked with us we will contact you to establish if this can be carried out via phone/video or if you will need to come to the practice. Do NOT walk into the practice if you had an appointment previously booked and you have not had confirmation that you can come to the practice. We are working our way through all the pre booked appointments to advise any one with one of these appointments of the process as soon as possible. Our priority tomorrow will be to contact patients booked in on Monday (although we did reach a number of you on Friday) and to then start on Tuesday’s appointments and so on.

BLOOD TEST APPOINTMENTS WITH OUR PHLEBOTOMIST/NURSES

Please telephone the practice if you require a blood test. If you already have a blood test booked with us we will contact you to clarify the arrangements for you to visit the practice. Do NOT walk into the practice if you had an appointment previously booked and you have not had confirmation that you can come to the practice. We are working our way through all the pre booked appointments to advise any one with one of these appointments of the process as soon as possible. Our priority tomorrow will be to contact patients booked in on Monday (although we did reach a number of you on Friday) and to then start on Tuesday’s appointments and so on.

SAMPLES

Please do NOT walk into the practice to request sample pots or to hand them in, please telephone us first to get the appropriate advice and arrangements for coming to the practice if necessary.

PLEASE BEAR WITH US IF IT TAKES A LITTLE LONGER THAN USUAL TO ANSWER THE TELEPHONE.

PRESCRIPTION COLLECTIONS FROM THE DISPENARY

We are a Dispensing Practice, to ensure we keep visits into the practice to a minimum we have implemented the following steps:

• With immediate effect, please do NOT come to collect your prescription BEFORE you have received a text message or telephone call from us to collect it.
• When you come to the practice, please look through the main door before entering, do NOT form a queue at the Dispensary Window but wait outside the building until the other patient has left. Our glass window will be closed and we will open it to the hand the bag to you, receive your completed prescription and take payment if you pay for prescriptions.
• Please bring your OWN pen so you can complete the back of your prescription when handed to you.
• If you do pay for your prescriptions please can you try to use a payment card, “contactless” payment is exactly that!
• Please help us by ordering your medications “on line” such as by the MyGP App or Patient Access. You can also order via the Wrenbury Medical Practice Website Prescriptions Page. Our preference is via My GPApp or Patient Access if you already have this set up.
• If you are unable to do the above please do not bring your paper prescription requests in to the practice but post them in our external letter box which is on the outside of the building near to the outer door.
• If you are a patient to whom we do not dispense the actual drugs to but we instead provide a paper script for collection which you then take to the chemist we will be contacting you to ask you to tell us which chemist you wish to pick up your prescription from and we will post the prescription directly to them. Please DO NOT ring us, wait for us to contact you.

We will try to provide regular updates and share these on our practice website and via the Wrenbury Facebook Page and the Parish Council Website.

We are proud to be part of the Wrenbury Community and we know that you will want to support not only the practice team but each and every one of our communities friends, neighbours and families, however, we need your help with all of the above to ensure we can help you and those in greatest need.

Please listen and act on the national advice, most importantly in washing your hands often and well!

Dr Marquis and Dr Saggar
Wrenbury Medical Practice