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An Open Letter to All Our Patients at New Islington Medical Practice Posted or Updated on 18 May 2021

Dear patients,

You may have recently heard on the news that we are due to “reopen” our doors to the general public, having been closed for many months since the beginning of the pandemic. The news came as a disappointment to your team here at the practice, who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to keep our practice OPEN.

If you are one of the 500 or so patients per week that we have spoken to or seen face to face as has been required for your care, you no doubt will feel the same as ourselves. Last week alone, we offered 458 appointments here at the surgery, and 38% of these were done face to face.

Not exhaustively, but to list a few, in the past months you will have been able to organise the following:

  • A telephone consultation with a GP, with a wait often of 4-6hrs and in extreme cases, the next working day.
  • A face-to-face consultation with a GP, following a telephone triage call, within 24hrs of your initial call back from your doctor.
  • A “straight to face-to-face appointment”, where it is deemed clinically that your need must be seen, and that the risks to both yourself, and your practice team from Covid-19 infection, are outweighed by your clinical need to be seen physically.
  • A cervical smear test, pre-bookable with a wait time of no more than 4 working days.
  • A blood test, often available within 3 working days.
  • A baby check or immunisation appointment with our nurse, available within 3 working days.
  • An annual chronic illness review – to be held over the phone initially with one of our nursing team, available within 3 working days.
  • A BP check, available within 1 working day.

The list goes on, and on. But as you can see, if you have needed us in the past, we have been here. And as ever, we will continue to be here for our patients and prioritise your needs first. GP practices are facing the biggest crisis in primary care health that the NHS has ever seen, and we have needed to take measures in order to stay open to service the needs of our patients.

You may or may not be aware, that if a staff member tests positive for Covid-19, we may need to close the surgery altogether.  As we work in a shared space, this may also lead to the forced closure of our partners within the building. As you can imagine, not taking every precaution could have catastrophic effects for thousands of patients.

We will continue to put your health and safety above everything else and we will continue to work diligently and safely, as we have been doing, to make ourselves available to you.

Please bear with us as we work together to overcome the challenges of the pandemic and please try to be kind to the staff – we are all aware of the pressures you are facing and we will try our very best to ensure you face no barriers to receiving care from the clinical team.

Please look after yourselves. We are here if you need us and we are all in this together.

From all the team at New Islington Medical Practice

Mythbusters:

I need to fill out an online consult form

NO.  These forms help the clinicians in preparing for the consultation, and they go towards the work in getting your medical history together prior to speaking to you. If you can, we appreciate this extra step as it assists us in triaging your complaint to the relevant clinical service. If you are unable to, you can book an appointment over the phone or by attending the surgery reception.

I can’t see my doctor face to face.

Of course you can. Our doctors will ring you or decide to bring you straight in dependent on the nature of your query. If it turns out that you need to see a specialist, we can refer you on whilst minimising your contact with a Clinician unnecessarily. If your complaint is of a nature that can be dealt with remotely, we will try to resolve your issue the same day, with as little inconvenience to yourself as possible.

Your doors are closed.

The building is open. You can attend in person, although we would prefer that to book an appointment, you ring us or contact us via our website, or email us directly at nmccg.nimp@nhs.net. We understand that some patients are hard of hearing, or digitally excluded, and we will continue to provide alternatives to all patients for making general practice available for their use.