Flu Vaccination Campaign 2024

We are pleased to update you on this year’s Flu Vaccination Campaign at the Practice. We have now completed all four of our walk-in clinics, plus an additional pre-bookable clinic on the 13^th November at Llanfyllin.

Our stock levels are now running low, if you are eligible for a flu vaccination and have yet to book in, please contact the practice on 01691 648 054.

We are also still inviting eligible children (those born between 1/9/2020 – 31/8/2022) for their nasal flu.

To find out if you’re eligible for a flu vaccine, please visit www.llanfyllingp.co.uk/flu-vaccinations

New Dispensing Software & Prescription Reminders

We have now successfully embedded our new dispensing software at Llanfyllin surgery and Four Crosses surgery. We be embedding our new software at Llanrhaeadr surgery in the new year.

We are now able to send SMS or email reminders to patients to inform them that their prescription is ready to collect, this is also the case for when a medication that is owed to the patient is ready to collect. Notifications can only be sent from branches that are set up with Titan, so some patients will not receive a notification until their designated collection site has been embedded with the new software.

To update your contact details and consent to receiving notifications from dispensary, please visit the following link:

www.llanfyllingp.co.uk/update-your-contact-details

Please note, if you have already completed this form recently, you do not need to complete again.

Training Placement Updates

We are pleased to have welcomed Gabriella Horn, a Keele University Medical Student, to the practice on the 4^th November. Bethan be with us for a period of 8 weeks until November.

It is vital we offer training placements to medical students; these may be our GPs of the future and gaining experience in a practice environment, practicing their skills and developing their knowledge and experience are all important parts of their training.

Upcoming Practice Closure Dates

• Wednesday 25^th December – Christmas Day
• Thursday 26^th December – Boxing Day
• Wednesday 1^st January 2025 – New Year's Day

All branches will be closed all day on the above dates for the Christmas and New Year bank holidays.

For urgent care whilst the practice is closed on these dates, please call 111. If you are calling of a mobile and unable to connect to 111, please call 0345 46 47.

Christmas Prescription Ordering Reminder

We would like to remind our patients to ensure that you have enough medication to cover you over the upcoming festive period. The last day to order your repeat medication to ensure it is ready to collect before Christmas is Thursday 19^th December. If the medication you require is NOT on your repeat list, please ensure you order by Tuesday 17^th December at the latest.

On behalf of the whole Practice team, we would like to wish our patients a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for your continued support throughout 2024.

Increased Demand for Acute Appointments

As you may be aware from recent local and National coverage, the NHS continues to be under challenging pressures, with GP practices at the forefront of increasingly high demand. 

At Llanfyllin Group Practice, we provide high quality, safe care to our patients and we offer a variety of resources, from chronic disease management to a Minor Injury Unit, which is available from 08.00 to 18.30 each weekday.  We also have a triage system for patients requiring medical support, with a lead GP looking at each case to plan appropriate care for each patient.  If your condition is deemed as requiring immediate medical care, arrangements may be made for you to attend the surgery; the waiting time for this immediate appointment can vary due to the complex nature of the triage day.

Current demand for our acute triage service is at an all-time high, with a 30% increase in patients requesting urgent appointments at our practice in May 2024 in comparison to May 2023, which adds increased pressure onto an already incredibly busy acute team.  As we are sure you can appreciate, an acute triage appointment is only able to address your current immediate medical need, however if further care is needed, this can be arranged with a routine appointment with one of our clinical team.

Lots of minor ailments and illnesses can often be treated within the home, with local pharmacies also offering advice and treatments - https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/pharmacies/how-pharmacies-can-help/ alongside support via the NHS 111 common ailments service https://www.111.wales.nhs.uk.

When ringing to request an urgent appointment please remember that our reception team are not clinically trained, it is important that your give them clear and accurate information regarding your condition to allow the acute team to triage your request appropriately.

Practice Fundraising Campaign

We have launched our practice fundraising campaign to help support and improve our dispensing service to our patients. Our aim is to raise enough funds to purchase a prescription collection unit for each of our three surgeries. The collection units provide a safe, quick, and secure way for patients to collect their pre-ordered medication from the surgery of their choice; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Why are we fundraising?

There is only one pharmacy in our 600 square mile practice area. As with many rural areas, this means that GP practices not only prescribe necessary medication for patients but also dispense the medication to the patient. We are unique in that we dispense to the vast majority of our patients. Given our list size of 11,200 patients this means we dispense up to 1000 items a day from our three surgeries (almost double what a large city pharmacy would dispense). This workload is continuing to rise and becoming increasingly more complex. This causes issues not only for our patients, but for our practice team working under increased pressure.

What are we proposing?

We want to bring a prescription collection unit to each of our sites. These units will allow our patients to collect their medication at a convenient time for them, either inside or outside our core opening hours, 24/7. They will also help us future proof our practice, manage increased demand on our services, improve our services, and support staff retention and moral.

For those patients that would choose to sign up to using the machines, they would receive a text informing them that their medication is ready to collect from their chosen site. The text would contain a unique code which they would use to access their medication whenever is convenient to them.

By patients using this service, this will allow our dispensing staff to give more support to patients that require more help with their medication.

Visit our website for further information!

To find out more information about our fundraising campaign, including our current challenges and how the collection machines would benefit our patients and practice, plus information on how you can make a contribution, please visit - www.llanfyllingp.co.uk/fundraising

We thank you for your support in helping us to provide a better service for our patients and support our team.

Training Placement Updates

We sadly say goodbye to our current GP Registrars, Dr Mohammed Abbas and Dr May Paing, at the beginning of August. Dr Mohammed has been with us since August 2023 and Dr Paing since the new year.

We are pleased to welcome Dr Andrew Jones, our new GP Registrar to the practice on the 7^th August. Dr Jones will be working with us for a 1 year placement.

GP registrars are doctors training to become GPs.  Llanfyllin Group Practice is accredited as a GP Training Practice, GP registrars are attached to one of the doctors here at the practice who is their trainer. The GP registrar is a fully qualified doctor who is likely to have a lot of experience of hospital medicine. 

Each GP Registrar will remain with us for a period of 6-12 months, so you may therefore be offered an appointment with the GP registrar. By the time you see a GP registrar they will have spent at least 5 years at medical school to qualify as a doctor. They will have then done 2 years working in hospitals followed by a 3 year training programme to become a GP, during which they will spend 18 months in a training practice. So by the time you see this doctor they may well have been working as a doctor for a period of up to 4 years.

We will also be welcoming Gabriella Horne, a Keele University Medical Student, to the practice on the 27^th August. Gabriella will be joining us for a period of 8 weeks until November.

It is vital we offer training placements to medical students; these may be our GPs of the future and gaining experience in a practice environment, practicing their skills and developing their knowledge and experience are all important parts of their training.

Medicine Wastage Notice

We are currently experiencing an increase in uncollected medication at all sites – these are dispensed prescriptions that are not collected within 4 weeks. Both dispensing all these prescriptions and then having to allocate a dispenser to undo these prescriptions is incredibly time consuming, and our dispensing team are already busy with their planned workload.

Here are some helpful points for our patients, by following the below points we can significantly minimise medicine wastage for the practice and wider NHS.

• We keep all ordered medication bags on the shelves for 4 weeks
• Please let your GP/pharmacist/dispensary team member know if you have stopped taking any of your medication.
• Check what medication you still have at home before re-ordering.
• Think carefully before ticking all the boxes on your repeat prescription forms and only tick those you really need
• If you don’t need any of your medication from your repeat list please don’t order it, if will not disappear from your list, you are still able to order when you need it in the future.
• Even if you never open them, once medicines have left the site, they cannot be re-used by the dispensary and have to be destroyed.

Flu Vaccination Campaign 2024

We are pleased to update you on this year’s Flu Vaccination Campaign at the Practice. This year we will be following a similar model we used last year. We will be running one Saturday walk-in clinic again as these were a huge success, followed by walk-in clinics at Llanfyllin, Four Crosses and Llanrhaeadr branch surgeries during the week.

Eligible patients will not need to book an appointment for their flu vaccination, simply turn up on the day!

Walk-in clinics as follows:

• Saturday 5^th October – walk-in clinic from 8am – 1pm @ Llanfyllin surgery
• Tuesday 8^th October - walk-in clinic from 2pm – 6pm @ Llanrhaeadr surgery
• Wednesday 9^th October - walk-in clinic from 2pm – 7pm @ Four Crosses surgery
• Wednesday 16^th October – walk-in clinic 2pm – 7pm @ Llanfyllin surgery

We will continue to share more information about our 2024 flu campaign on our website www.llanfyllingp.co.uk and our Facebook page www.facebook.com/llanfyllinGP/

Upcoming Practice Closure Dates

• Monday 26^th August – All Day closure for the Summer Bank Holiday weekend

For urgent care whilst the surgery is closed on this date, please call 111. If you are ringing off a mobile and unable to connect to 111, please ring 0345 46 47.

• Thursday 15^th August – Morning Closure until 1pm
• Tuesday 17^th September – Afternoon Closure from 1pm (phone lines close at 12pm)

For urgent care whilst the surgery is closed on the 15^th August and 17^th September, please call Shropdoc on 01743 455 364.

Training Placement Updates:

This month we will be welcoming Denis Chan, a Year 3 Medical Student from Keele University. Denis will join us at the beginning of July for 2 weeks. It is vital we offer training placements to medical students, these may be our GPs of the future, gaining experience in a practice environment, practicing their skills and developing their knowledge and experience are all important parts of their training.

We are also pleased to welcome Niamh Pugh, a trainee Pharmacist from Liverpool John Moores University who will be joining us from 30^th July for a 4-month period. Niamh will be supported by our Pharmacist Partner, Tony Hewett.

We will also be welcoming our new GP Registrar, Dr Andrew Jones, to the practice on 7^th August. Andrew will be joining the practice for a 12-month period. GP registrars are fully qualified doctors that are training to become GPs. Llanfyllin Group Practice is an accredited GP Training Practice; GP registrars are assigned to one of the doctors here at the practice who will be their trainer for the period of time they are with us.

Practice Fundraising Campaign:

We have launched our practice Fundraising Campaign to help support and improve our dispensing service to our patients. Our aim is to raise enough funds to purchase a prescription collection unit for each of our three surgeries. The collection units provide a safe, quick and secure way for patients to collect their pre-ordered prescriptions from the surgery of their choice – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They will also help us future-proof our practice, manage increased demand on our services, improve our service, and support staff retention and moral.

If you would like to find out more about the campaign and how you can contribute, please visit: www.llanfyllingp.co.uk/fundraising

Shingles Vaccination Campaign:

At the end of 2023, we invited eligible patients in for their 1^st dose of the Shingles vaccine. We are now starting to invite those patients back in for their 2^nd and final dose, which is due between 6 – 12 months after the 1^st dose. If you have received a letter inviting you in for your 2^nd dose, please contact the practice on 01691 648 054 to book in to one of our designated clinics.

Shingles is a common condition that causes a painful rash. It can sometimes lead to serious problems such as long-lasting pain, hearing loss or blindness. You're more likely to get shingles, and it's more likely to cause serious problems, as you get older or if you have a severely weakened immune system.

You are eligible for the Shingles vaccination if;

• You are aged 50 and over and have a severely weakened immune system, or,
• You have just celebrated your 65^th birthday or are aged 70 to 79

If you think you fall into the above categories but haven’t received an invite for your vaccine, please contact the practice on 01691 648 054 to speak with our team about booking in.

Please note, from September 2023, all newly eligible individuals within the UK have been offered two doses of the new non-live vaccine Shingrix.  Anyone who received the single-dose Zostavax brand vaccine before September 2023 has had a complete vaccination course and so does not need a second dose and should not be revaccinated with the new Shingrix vaccine.  There is currently no need for reinforcing immunisation against shingles once the course has been administered, this applies equally to the single-dose Zostavax and the two-dose Shingrix.

Flu Vaccination Campaign 2024:

We are currently in the early stages of planning our 2024 Flu Vaccination Campaign at the practice. Once we have finalised plans we will update further via our usual communication channels. Keep up to date will all practice news by following our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/llanfyllinGP/

Medication Holiday Supply Ordering Reminder:

As we enter the summer months, we are noticing an increased number of patients ordering extra medication supplies to cover them while they are away on holiday. We are happy to accommodate these requests, but we politely ask that patients give us ample time to fulfil these requests. Repeat medication orders take 3 working days to fulfil, but we would recommend ordering a week in advance to ensure that your medication is ready before you go on holiday.

If you use our ‘Pre-ordered Dispensing System’ and have been given a date that falls whilst you will be away, please inform our dispensing team at least a week in advance so that we can ensure your medication is ready before you go away.

Practice Activity Data Update – May 2024

Please see below our monthly table of activity for the practice for May 2024:

Whilst this doesn’t cover all of the work completed at the practice it hopefully gives a sense of the monthly activity undertaken by our team - demand is higher than ever and we continue to evolve our ways of working to ensure those patients with the greatest clinical need are prioritised.

We continue an increase in demand across all areas at the practice. In comparison to May 2023, last month we saw a 3% increase in Face-to-Face appointments, a 6% increase in the number of items issued in dispensary, a 9% increase in referrals sent, and a 35% increase in the number of medication queries the team are dealing with. Finally, we have seen a massive 30% increase in telephone triage appointments, which continues to highlight the increased demand on our acute service for urgent appointments and medical advice.

Thank you to all our patients for your continued support to the practice.

Upcoming Practice Closure Dates:

PRACTICE TRAINING CLOSURES

• Wednesday 10^th July – Afternoon Closure from 1pm (phone lines close at 12pm)
• Thursday 15^th August – Morning Closure until 1pm (Medication collection re-opens at 2pm)

For urgent care during the hours the surgery is closed on the 10^th July & 15^th August, please call Shropdoc on 01743 455 364.

BANK HOLIDAYS

• Monday 26^th August – All day closure for the Summer Bank Holiday

For urgent care whilst the surgery is closed on the above bank holiday date, please call 111. If you are ringing off a mobile and unable to connect to 111, please ring 0345 46 47.