THURSDAY 24TH NOVEMBER : WE HAVE BEEN AWARDED 'GOOD' BY THE CQC FOLLOWING OUR RECENT INSPECTION.
Prescription Charges
The price of an item on a prescription was increased from £9.00 to £9.35 on 1st April 2021. The price of prepayment certificates has increased to £30.25 for 3 months and £108.10 for 12 months which means that if you regularly have 2 items issued you could make a saving by prepaying.
Application forms are available at Reception, pharmacies or you can apply on-line at
https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ppcwebsales
Non Prescription Medication
The Govenrment has published a list of conditions for which medication will no longer be available on prescription. Full details can be found at this website.
http://www.networks.nhs.uk/networks/news/quick-reference-guide-to-over-the-counter-items-not-to-be-prescribed-in-primary-care
Named GP
All Patients registered at the surgery now have a named allocated GP. If you wish to know who your allocated GP is, or to request a specific GP, please contact the surgery
IT / ELECTRONIC PATIENT RECORDS
STATEMENT OF INTENT FOR Brook Medical Centre
New contractual requirements came into force from 1 April 2014 requiring that GP Practices should make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments :
- Summary Care Record (SCR)
- GP to GP Record Transfers
- Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
- Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes
The same contractual obligations require that we have a statement of intent regarding these developments in place and publicised by 30 September 2014.
Please find below details of our stance with regards to these points.
Summary Care Record (SCR)
NHS England require practices to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis, to the summary care record (SCR) or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.
Having your Summary Care Record (SCR) available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.
Of course if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record.
Brook Medical Centre confirms that your SCR is automatically updated on at least a daily basis to ensure that your information is as up to date as it can possibly be.
GP to GP Record Transfers
NHS England require practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers (not for temporary registration).
It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times. If you leave your GP and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England. It can take your paper records up to two weeks to reach your new surgery.
With GP to GP record transfers your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.
Brook Medical Centre confirms that GP to GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.
Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
NHS England require practices to promote and offer the facility to enable patients online access to appointments, prescriptions, allergies and adverse reactions or have published plans in place to achieve this by 31st of March 2015.
We do not currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments on-line but you can order your prescription on-line via the web site. Once the on-line booking system is in place you will be required to have a user name and password for this system – details to follow, when the system is up and running. Our computer supplier System One has not yet made our system compliant for you to access information online from your medical record but again we will inform you when this service is available.
Brook Medical Centre confirms that that they working closely with the Area Team and System One to achieve this.
Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes
It is already a requirement of the Health and Social Care Act that practices must meet the reasonable data requirements of commissioners and other health and social care organisations through appropriate and safe data sharing for secondary uses, as specified in the technical specification for care data.
At Brook Medical Centre we have specific arrangements in place to allow patients to “opt out” of care data which allows for the removal of data from the practice. Please see the Reception team for the opt out form.
Brook Medical Centre confirms these arrangements are in place and that we undertake annual training and audits to ensure that all our data is handled correctly and safely.
Mobile Phone Text Messaging - we can now send messages to patients' phones
We can now send text messages to patients' mobile phones. We intend to use this facility to send reminders for appointments, annual check ups and to advise patients about specific clinics such as 'flu immunisations.
If you have a mobile phone please ensure that the surgery has the correct number so that we can make use of this new service to keep in touch with you. There is a button on the home page that allows you to update any of your personal details and you might like to use this to let us know about changes to your phone numbers.
Staff Training - The surgery will be closed on one Wednesday afternoon each month for training.
These sessions are used to ensure that all staff are up to date with national requirements for topics such as child protection. Details of all the dates are shown on the Opening Times pages
Northampton Out of Hours will provide cover on these afternoons from 12:30pm for urgent medical care.
Appointment System
We are revising our appointment system which we believe will improve access to doctors and nurses at the surgery and get you the appointment you need, when you need it.
How it works:
1. Call the surgery and ask to make an appointment with the doctor or nurse.
2. If your problem is an urgent new illness, you will be asked for your name, a contact number and to give a brief outline of why you need an appointment. A skilled specialist nurse will call you back to discuss your problem. This service will run from 8:00 untill 11:00 in the morning and from 2:00 until 4:30 in the afternoon.(Urgent medical advice outside theses times can be obtained from NHS 111.)
3. The nurse may be able to help you over the telephone but if they think you need to come into the surgery to be seen, they will make an appointment for you.
4. Non urgent appointments will be allocated to a nurse or GP as appropriate.
Electronic Prescription Service
The EPS is a system which allows GP Practices to electronically send repeat or one-off prescriptions to a pharmacy for the patient to pick up. Initially patients will need to choose the pharmacy from which to collect their prescription, this process is known as‘nomination’.
Nomination works in a similar way to a prescription collection service where the pharmacy collects your prescription for you instead of you having to collect it from your GP practice. The main difference with nomination is that your prescription will be sent electronically and you do not have to nominate a place that is close to your GP practice. For example, you could choose to nominate a place that is convenient to where you live, work or shop.
At the start, not all pharmacies in Northamptonshire will be able to accept electronic prescriptions, although most of our local pharmacies have already signed up to provide this service . Those that are will clearly display a sign showing that they are part of the scheme.
You will be able to nominate a pharmacy to receive your electronic prescriptions at Brook Medical Centre, or at any EPS Release 2 enabled pharmacy. Once you have made a nomination, we may send all future prescriptions electronically to the place you have nominated, unless you specify otherwise.
At the moment, some medications cannot be prescribed electronically,such as controlled drugs. If any of your medications are not eligible for EPS your pharmacy or GP practice will make you aware of this.
The introduction of EPS means that those patients who have regular prescriptions may not need to make as many visits to their GP Practice to pickup prescriptions. It will also reduce the need for paper prescriptions in many cases. If you have any questions about the Electronic Prescription Service please ask at reception, or go to http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/eps/patients
Medical reports, Letters, forms etc.
We have been getting a great many requests for doctors to supply medical reports, letters, forms etc.
Much of this type of work is not covered by the NHS contract and has to be classified as private work and a fee charged. In the past the doctors have tried to complete these requests alongside their NHS work, however as you will be aware the NHS is under greater pressure than ever before and this means that doctors have less time to spare on requests for private work.
In the future the GPs will only be accepting requests for reports, letters and forms that they are obliged to complete as part of the NHS contract, or are directly concerned with a patient's health.
Thank you for your understanding.
Care Navigation
Our reception staff are here to help you get the right service for your needs.Please don’t be offended if they ask what the problem is when you call to make an appointment.
The Receptionist / Care Navigator might suggest you see an alternative health care professional:
- Pharmacies
- First for Wellbeing
- Nurse Practitioners
- Sexual Health
- Talking Therapies
Thank you for helping us to help you.