Practice Updates

26th Nov

UPDATE ON ACCESSING THE PRACTICE FOR AN APPOINTMENT

In light of the COVID pandemic the Practice had to make a number of changes across all of its services to ensure that we made every attempt to keep our team and patients as safe as possible. One of the measures introduced was controlled access at our front doors of each surgery. We did this to limit footfall, maintain social distancing and prevent anyone entering our surgeries who had not already spoken to one of our clinical team and been requested to attend from just walking in.

Whilst we are still working under the same social distancing and infection control regulations we recognise that it’s been challenging for patients to wait at the front door of each surgery to be granted access (if appropriate) and also challenging for our reception team to run continuously between their working areas and the front door so we took some time during our training time yesterday to review these arrangements as a team to see if we could look to make things a little easier for everyone.

Following this review we have agreed to trial not having our front doors locked but to ask patients to support us by only entering our surgeries under the following criteria:

All patients entering our surgeries must have a pre booked appointment
All patients entering our surgeries must not have tested positive for COVID in the last 10 days, must not have a household member with COVID and must not be experiencing any COVID symptoms
We will not be booking any appointments at reception front desk at any surgery, for appointments or queries you must continue to telephone reception on 01691 648054
Do not enter to collect medication at Four Crosses and Llanfyllin, please continue to collect from the medication collection points signed at each site.
Llanrhaeadr patients can enter the surgery to collect medication due for collection that day.
Ensure you follow social distancing requirements at all of our surgeries
Do not enter any of our surgeries without wearing a face mask that covers your nose and mouth
Please sanitise your hands when entering and leaving any of our surgeries
Please attend your appointment alone unless you need the support of a carer
Please use the self-check in unit at Llanfyllin and Four Crosses to check in for your appointment
Seating in the waiting room is clearly marked to allow us to maintain social distancing, do not sit on any seat that is not marked as available please.
Do not arrive too earlier or late for your appointment. Our appointments are staggered to ensure we do not have too many patients at any time in our waiting areas, arriving too late or early may breach our maximum patient numbers and also the clinician will not be able to see you outside of your appointment time

We very much hope these arrangements make things a little easier for everyone, we are though depending on patients adhering to our requests and hope that we can have everyone’s full support to ensure we can continue to work as safely as possible. We will keep these arrangements under review and will keep patients updated with any changes.

20th Oct

Flu vaccination campaign update – Tuesday 19th October

We are unable to take any further requests for flu vaccination appointments for those patients aged under 65 as we have now allocated all of our existing supply and that of our next order which is due in the practice w/c 29th November.

All patients aged under 65 who already have an appointment with the practice please note this appointment will go ahead as planned. All patients who are currently on our waiting list will be contacted by the practice to book an appointment either this week to use up existing stocks or once our next delivery scheduled w/c 29th November arrives.

We still have vaccine stocks available for patients aged 65 and over and you can continue to book these appointments by contacting reception on 01691 648054

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, despite increasing our vaccine order for this year’s campaign demand has far exceeded previous years and we are unable to obtain additional stocks.

15th Sep

Activity Date August 2021

8th Sep

Dental Helpline

If you need help finding a dentist, phone the Powys Dental Helpline on 01597 828815

31st Aug

Urgent Practice Notice

As recently reported in the National Press, there is a UK-wide shortage of the blood bottles used for taking blood tests.

We are awaiting guidance on the current situation, following that guidance should this affect any appointment that you currently have with the practice then we will notify you in due course

Thank - you

26th Aug

My Desmond

Self-management Programme for People with type 2 diabetes

Ask the Expert – where you’ll have the multi-disciplinary team of the Leicester Diabetes Centre at your fingertips
Track your activity levels and even link up to the Fitbit or Google Fit
Track your weight, blood pressure, HbA1c, diet and cholesterol Set daily goals that fi t around your lifestyle
Compete with others in our DESMOND community on the global leader boards
Chat with members of the DESMOND community
Invite your friends and family to join you in your journey Learn more about type 2 diabetes through our interactive learning and 9-weekly booster sessions

Download the flyrer here

4th Aug

COVID-19 Visiting Your GP Surgery

Please wear face coverings. COVI-19 protections are still in place at this surgery.

4th Aug

PRACTICE UPDATE

Demands on General Practice were always great before the COVID pandemic hit. Our team have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic and we continue to see increasing demand on our services month by month. We are already dealing with 20 - 30% more demand for many of our services, this causes pressure on our telephone lines, our appointments availability and on our administrative time. As a Practice we have always responded to this demand by ensuring we prioritise those patients with the greatest clinical need.

We already face increased challenges operating a GP Practice in a very rural area. The size of our Practice area is over 600 square miles. This poses challenges for us delivering services and for patients travelling distances to attend for appointments.

We can also experience longer than average wait times for ambulance responses which again can cause pressure on our daily workload as we deal with clinical emergencies that present in practice.

We aim to as effectively as we can use the resources we have, we continually review our workload and plan our services to meet these challenges but this increased demand does mean for patients with routine requests there will sometimes be a delay and we ask that you do not take out any frustrations these waits may cause you on our team.

We regularly publish our activity data so you have a sense of the work we do in the Practice, for the latest data please see our social media page and/or our website www.llanfyllin-gp.co.uk

As you can appreciate our team have worked through exceptionally challenging circumstances throughout this last 18 months and you can help us to help you by following the below guidance we have put together:

COVID vaccine pass:

The practice are unable to deal with these queries. You can easily access this information by signing up to our app (full details below) or by clicking the link here: https://gov.wales/get-nhs-covid-pass-show-your...

Hospital appointment waiting times:

We are seeing increasing demand for the Practice to expedite patient’s hospital referrals and to confirm waiting times for their referral.

In the first instance we ask that all patients contact the hospital they have been referred to as we do not have up to date information on hospital waiting times, nor are we notified in advance of your hospital appointments or operation dates you may be given.

Expedite letters - we are aware that patients are often told by the hospital to get a letter from the GP so that their appointment can be expedited. The NHS is under huge pressure and there are a backlog of patients awaiting hospital appointments and this will take some time to work through so simply waiting a longer time than you would wish does not make your request urgent as unfortunately everyone is waiting longer in this current situation.

If your condition has deteriorated since you were referred we ask that you please let us know.

Prescriptions update:

For repeat prescription requests please order your medication allowing 3 working days for your request to be processed i.e. prescriptions ordered on a Tuesday afternoon will be ready on the Friday afternoon. (Saturdays and Sundays are non-working days)

For items not on repeat prescription please allow 5 working days for your request to be processed.

Practice information:

Our website is kept up to date with all of the information you need on the services we provide and how to access them. Please use this as your first port of call for general information on the Practice and NHS help and support.

You can also use the website to contact us for non-urgent requests.

Please go to www.llanfyllin-gp.co.uk

COVID:

Infection control measures in place when you attend the practice:

A reminder to all of our patients that in line with Welsh Government guidance we still have all of the below measures in place at our surgeries to ensure the safety of our team members, their families and our patients, some of whom are extremely vulnerable.

You must not attend the Practice if you are experiencing any COVID symptoms or you have been a contact of someone who has tested positive for COVID.

These measures apply whether or not you have been vaccinated.

Full details of symptoms and arranging a COVID test are available here: https://pthb.nhs.wales/coronavirus/coronavirus-testing/

Please remember even if you are fully vaccinated you must follow the testing guidance as there is still a risk you may transmit the virus to others.

Appointments:

We continue to operate full general medical services offering telephone triage appointments on the day for patients who need urgent medical attention and routine calls and face to face appointments with our clinicians.

Patients requiring urgent medical attention:

If you need urgent medical attention please call reception on 01691 648054 and our receptionists will take the details of your request and if appropriate a telephone triage call with our duty clinical team will be booked.

Following clinical triage any urgent patients who need to be assessed face to face will be offered an appointment the same day to attend one of our surgeries so please ensure you are available to attend when making your request.

Patients experiencing severe chest pain, collapse, severe breathing difficulties, slurred speech or have one sided weakness or severe bleeding please call 999 immediately

Patients requesting a routine appointment:

Please telephone reception 01691 648054 to speak to one of our trained receptionists. They will take a number of details from you and direct you to the most appropriate source of care.

Please note that our reception team are asked by our clinicians to take as much information as they can from you to enable you to be directed to the most appropriate source of care for your concern and all information you share with any of our team is strictly confidential.

Flu vaccinations

The practice are finalising our plans to deliver flu vaccinations to our eligible patients commencing the end of September.

For those patients who attended for their vaccination last year we will be following the same system where we will be separating our flu vaccination clinics from all of our routine work.

We will be offering appointments across all of our 3 sites and eligible patients will be invited in by the practice and at the same time you will be given information on how to book your appointment.

Once our plans are finalised we will update everyone. To receive instant notifications of when our flu campaign is commencing please sign up to our app, details below

COVID booster vaccines

At present discussions are ongoing with the Local Health Board (LHB) as to whether practices will be asked to participate in the COVID booster campaign.

As a practice we remain committed to delivering as many services as possible to our patients and we will update you once the LHB has finalised plans.

My Surgery App

The Practice has a new app available for you to download. The app has been designed by patients and doctors and provides a central resource at the touch of a button to access our services and health information using a smart phone or a tablet device.

Over 1500 patients have already downloaded and are using our app and we invite you to join them to allow you to quickly and easily:

Receive push notifications from the practice to service changes and all of the latest practice news and updates

Link straight to the NHS COVID pass, receive COVID vaccination information and all of the latest COVID updates.

Click on this link to get started: https://www.llanfyllin-gp.co.uk/my-surgery-app---download...

Finally we would like to thank all of you for your continued support. It has been an incredibly challenging 18 months for us all.

Llanfyllin Group Practice

2nd Jul

5K Your Way - Move Against Cancer

We invite anyone who is living with, or beyond, cancer; families, griends, health professionals, to join us once a month walk, jog, run, cheer, or volunteer at a 5K Your Way - Move Against Cancer group inked with a local parkrun!

All ages and abilities are welcome. Lots of us will be walking.

Do as much or as little as you want. There is no need to walk the whole 5K

More info here

8th Jun

Important News re your data

An increasing number of practices are receiving communications from patients noting their 'dissent from secondary care use of GP patient identifiable data ' either via a template letter, email or verbally.

This is following a notice from NHS digital in ENGLAND for daily data collection under the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) service. This DOESN'T apply to practices in Wales.

This data does not presently apply to General Practices in Wales and is specifically for those practices providing contracted services to English residents within England.

The increasing number of requests are likely to be due to the fact that English residents have until 23rd June to notify their English GP Practice that they wish to opt-out of this data collection due to start on 1st July 2021.

Please do not contact the Practice about the above as it doesn't apply to patients living in Wales.

26th May

Foodwise for Life

More information here

18th May

Get Help, Stay Safe

Information and support for older people experiencing abuse.

Please Remember: You Are Not Alone.

You may be worried about someone you care about. You may be desperate for help and support, but not sure where to turn. But please remember: You are not alone. Help and support is available. We know that seeking help can be incredibly difficult, but it is important that you get help if you need it. Please don’t suffer in silence. Find more information here.

14th May

Support for Virtual Fathers

Feel isolated as a father or need parenting support? For more information, please click here

18th Apr

Patient Transport

Information about non-emergendy pateint transport

English
Welsh
Both languages

15th Apr

PRACTICE ACTIVITY DATA MARCH 2021

May be an image of text

3rd Mar

Blue Badge Availability

Who is eligible for a blue badge?

Blue Badge eligibility.pdf

1st Mar

Free Diabetes Pre-conception Advice

Do you have diabete? Do you want a baby?

Free pre-conception advice available for all Wales

Bilingual A4 Poster - Pre-conception.pdf

25th Feb

Information on COVID-19 Vaccination in Powys

Download here

20th Feb

Mental Health Monitoring

Download the active Monitoring Leaflet here

20th Feb

Home Shouldn't be a Place of Fear

Chat to us confidentially on 07860 077333. More details here

18th Nov 2020

The Mamwlad Project

The Mamwlad project, funded by the Welsh Government is delivered by Care & Repair in Powys and Age Cymru Powys. It is a service to help people over 50 in the farming community whether a farmer, farm worker or retired from farming to stay living at home safely and independently and to tackle loneliness and isolation.

Download more information

9th Nov 2020

Credu Connecting Carers

Looking after somone with a health condition and/or disability?

Credu Flyer

17th Jul 2020

PRACTICE UPDATE - FACE COVERINGS

The practice are asking all patients to please wear a face covering when entering any of our surgeries - this does not apply when you are collecting you medication but we do ask that you to adhere to social distancing by queuing two metres apart

For more details on how to make your own face masks please visit https://gov.wales/face-coverings-frequently-asked-questions