GP Appointments
Dear Patients
We are currently experiencing a shortage of on-the-day GP appointments due to a combination of greatly increased and unprecedented demand for services and GP absence.
If the appointment that you request is not immediately available for you, please understand that this is not the fault of our reception staff. We respectfully request that reception staff are treated with courtesy at all times.
Please note that we operate a zero-tolerance policy towards abuse of our staff.
If you need urgent medical attention, then you will be offered a telephone call-back from a GP. The GP will assess your problem during the call. The Doctor will offer advice and, if appropriate, generate a prescription for you. If you need to be seen by a Doctor, the GP will invite you to attend a mutually convenient appointment.
Please note that GP's have access to appointments that are not available for booking by reception staff, just for this purpose.
PLEASE TREAT OUR RECEPTION STAFF WITH COURTESY AT ALL TIMES. THEY ARE DOING THEIR VERY BEST TO HELP YOU ACCESS THE SERVICES YOU NEED.
Thank you for your support.
From all of the Doctors and staff at Brunel Medical Practice.
May Bank Holiday Pharmacy Opening Times
Please click onto the link below for information regarding the opening times of Torbay pharmacies for the May Bank Holidays.
May Bank Holiday Pharmacies - opening times
Dear Patient,
We are currently experiencing very high call volumes and this, coupled with sickness within our GP and reception teams, plus winter demand for GP services, means that you may experience some delays while we answer calls. Also we may not be immediately able to offer you a GP appointment.
Please be assured that we are working very hard to accommodate all our patients at this time.
If your call is not urgent and can be dealt with at the pharmacy, then please seek advice from your Pharmacist first.
If your call is urgent, and no face-to-face appointments are available, we will arrange a telephone consultation with a GP for you. The GP that you speak to will be able to give you advice over the phone, and - where appropriate - can issue a prescription directly to your pharmacy. In some cases there may be no need for you to come to the surgery. If your GP feels that you need to be seen, then a convenient face-to-face appointment will be arranged for you.
Please bear with us at this busy time.
The Partners
Brunel Medical Practice
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Please see link below for latest version of our Newsletter
Autumn Newsletter
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Federating
Following recent meetings, Brunel Medical Practice, Chilcote Surgery, Parkhill Medical Practice and Southover Medical Practice will begin to work collaboratively in a federated model which will be known as Riviera Health Care.
Rivera Health Care would like to take this opportunity to formally announce to our practice colleagues in the South Devon and Torbay CCG footprint, the CCG and NHSE our aim to embrace a new model of working, with a view to ensuring sustainability now and in the future.
The pace of change we find ourselves now working within is fast, relentless and unprecedented. As a result practices can no longer work in isolation without the support that a federated model can offer.
Riviera Health Care intends to initially work on one or two smaller projects with an aim to get used to new closer working relationships and embedding those changes before tackling larger and more labour intensive work streams.
We have agreed to start our journey with identifying any synergies where we may be able to utilise resources more effectively.
Riviera Health Care aims are simple; Closer Smarter Working
Important Information about Repeat Prescriptions Trial
Information about Managed Repeats
Pharmacy Letter to Patients
Meningitis B Petition and media coverage
Practice staff will be aware that there is currently media coverage regarding a petition to Parliament for all children under 11 to be given Men B vaccine. This has gained impetus following endorsement by Matt Dawson, whose son also contracted meningitis (although it should be noted that this was with a different strain for which there is already a comprehensive vaccination programme).
The Department of Health have issued the following statement:
"Our thoughts are with Faye's family at this difficult time. "When any new immunisation programme is introduced, there has to be a date to determine eligibility - a decision based on the best independent clinical recommendation to ensure we can protect those children most at risk of MenB. "When our nationwide MenB vaccination programme was introduced last year, England became the first country to protect our babies from this devastating disease. All children who are now aged up to 9 months should have been offered the vaccine."
Background
The Department of Health is advised on immunisation matters, including the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of new vaccines by the independent expert body, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) - https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation. The JCVI advised that the Meningococcal B vaccination programme should aim to protect infants before they reach five months of age because this is when the risk is greatest. The vaccine is first offered to children from 2 months of age.
MenB immunisation was introduced from 1 September for those babies who are due to receive their primary immunisations starting at 2 months of age on or after 1 September 2015 (i.e. those born on or after 1 July 2015), with a one-off catch-up programme for those infants born from 1 May 2015 to 30 June 2015.
Children who are now aged up to 9 months should have been offered the vaccine. When any new immunisation programme is introduced, there has to be a cut-off date to determine eligibility. We recognise that
families with children outside the eligible age groups will be naturally disappointed, but there is no other way of realistically starting new programmes.. At the same time, the number of children vaccinated will continue to increase as the programme grows and by next year, one year olds and many two year olds will also be protected by the vaccine. (Please note: Men B vaccine is also recommended for administration to patients in certain at risk groups in addition to the primary childhood programme detailed above – see full details in the Green Book).
Private administration of MenB vaccine
We realise that parents are very likely to approach practices requesting private administration of the MenB vaccine. It should be noted that GPs cannot administer vaccines on a private basis to patients on their own practice lists. They may however consider reciprocal arrangements with another practice for this purpose.
It is not appropriate for NHS England to advise of or signpost to any private suppliers of these vaccines as these suppliers act outside of the NHS and we cannot therefore assure that they are following the required standards for the safe storage, supply and administration of these medicines.
There is also currently a shortage of supply of the Men B vaccine, and although this does not affect supply to the national programme via ImmForm, it may affect access to private supplies.
Contact by parents does, however, present an opportunity for practices to check the child’s immunisation status and to offer any immunisations that the child may have previously missed to ensure they are as fully protected as possible against other strains of meningitis and other diseases with potentially serious consequences (HiB/MenC/MMR etc). We would encourage practices to do this wherever possible – particularly in light of the fact that we understand that the currently publicised case relating to Matt Dawson’s son involved a different vaccine preventable strain.
If Practices have any queries regarding this or any other vaccination programmes please contact the Screening and Immunisation Team via england.bnsssg.imms@nhs.net
Please do not contact the local Child Health Teams as they are not able to assist with clinical matters or those relating to eligibility.
Newsflash
From Torbay Safeguarding Children Board
If you’ve heard of Minecraft then you probably know what a big deal it is to many children in Torbay. It is a great online game that children love to interact with but many people don’t realise there is also a social networking element to the game. We don’t want this to stop children’s online fun, but to support families to do this safely you can change this within the settings. The NSPCC have added a page to their website dedicated to Minecraft with a further document to support families.
There are also lots of YouTube videos to support Minecrafters but some of these are also not appropriate for young children. Advice on You Tube parental control settings can be found here.
Torbay Safeguarding Children Board - Keeping children safe is everyone's responsibility
Notice
Dear Patients,
Our Receptionists try their very best at all times to answer telephone calls as quickly as possible. They work hard to ensure that appointments are booked and enquiries resolved speedily.
However, we acknowledge that sometimes recently, and for a variety of reasons, we have been unable to provide our patients with the telephone service that we aspire to.
We would like to reassure all our patients that we are undertaking a full review of our Reception service and the systems that we use, and we are making changes so that we can provide a highly responsive, streamlined and efficient telephone service to all our patients.
The changes that we’re making include enhancing our telephone systems, recruiting more staff to our Reception team and matching our resources to peak call times. We have recently recruited two new members of staff, with the result that we are able to answer more patient calls and respond more quickly to telephone demand.
Improving our service to our patients is very important to us, and we are sure that these enhancements will prove to be effective.
If you have any enquiries about our Appointments system and the ways in which you can consult your Doctor, please email us at brunel.torquay@nhs.net
Named Accountable GP
From 1st April 2015 all Brunel patients, including children, have a Named Accountable GP responsible for their care at the surgery. This does not change which doctor you can see.
If you would like to know who your GP is, please ask at reception.
Important Message from Dr Haugh regarding the services we offer to our patients.
Please click on the following link : Practice Message from Dr Haugh