Noticeboard

DATE FOR YOUR DIARY - SATURDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER - FLU CLINIC

We are now taking bookings for our flu clinic which is being held on Saturday 23rd September.

We are also holding a shingles/flu clinic for those of you who are eligible for both vaccines on 23rd September.

Please contact reception on 01271 329004 to check whether you are eligible and to make an appointment.

NATIONAL PATIENT SURVEY - RESULTS

Thank you to our patients who completed the national patient survey for Brannam Medical Centre. We have now received the results and would like to share these with you. Please click here to view the results.

MJOG

We use a messaging system called MJOG which allows us to contact our patients by text and voice message. We have been using this to invite our patients in for their seasonal flu vaccinations, chronic disease recalls and also for appointment reminders.

We would like to make our patients aware that if you receive a voice message starting 'This is a message from Brannam Medical Centre' it is a genuine message from us and please listen to the message all the way through and you will be able to respond.

If you do not wish to receive messages in this way, please contact the reception team.

National Diabetes Audit (NDA): Helping to improve diabetes care

Brannam Medical Centre is taking part in an important national project about diabetes care and treatment in the NHS. Please click here for more information.

BLOOD PRESSURE APPOINTMENTS

Please remember to arrive at least 5 minutes before your appointment to give your heart rate a chance to steady. Please wear loose clothing and refrain from Caffeine and Nicotine for at least 30 minutes prior to your Blood Pressure appointment.

Welcome to Brannam Medical Centre

We are a forward thinking patient centred practice offering continuity of care for all patient groups. We are one of the region's leading training practices with a diverse skill mix of highly valued healthcare professionals and support staff. We aim to offer excellent accessibility for both your long term care and more urgent medical needs.

Coronavirus advice

If you have recently travelled to the following areas:
China
Thailand
Japan
Republic of Korea
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Singapore
Malaysia
Macau

If you have returned to the UK from any of these areas in the last 14 days and develop symptoms of cough or fever or shortness of breath, please do NOT attend or ring the surgery instead you should immediately:

Stay indoors and avoid contact with other people as you would with the flu
call NHS 111 to inform them of your recent travel to the country

Please follow this advice even if your symptoms are minor.

Coronavirus advice

The opportunity for a Partner and Salaried GP has become available!

For more information please click on the Job vacancies tab on the right.

CLOSURE OF CAR PARK

FROM 3rd FEBRUARY TO OCTOBER

Building work on our extension to the medical centre will start on 3^rd February and continue through until October. During this period the car park will be significantly reduced in size to accommodate plant for the builders. It will be closed to all patients for Health and Safety reasons. Parking will only be available for the doctors in order for them to carry out home visits. There is a large public car park adjacent to the medical centre. We also ask patients not to park on the turning circle in front of the pharmacy as this should be kept free for emergency ambulances. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Clinical System Update

We would like to apologise for the reduced customer service that some of our patients have experienced recently.

We are aware that it has been more difficult to get through on the phone and we have often had queues at our front reception desk. We are also aware that some routine administrative tasks have not been done in a timely manner. Clinical care of our patients has not been affected.

We had a new clinical system called SystmOne installed at the practice towards the end of August, which was an extremely complex task, particularly as we now have more than 17,000 registered patients. We were unable to make any forward bookings for appointments until our system went live which resulted in a large increase in the volume of calls coming through reception. This also coincided with patients trying to book their annual flu vaccinations in September. We took over 8,000 telephone calls in September compared to 6,800 in June. Our staff are still learning their way round the new IT system and are understandably taking a bit longer to deal with routine calls and answer queries leading to delays in answering the phone. We are monitoring our calls on a weekly basis and are reviewing the setup of our telephone system to see how we can improve it.

We have had two members of staff manning our front reception desk as often as possible to try and reduce the queues during busy periods. Unfortunately this takes them away from answering the phone. During this period frontline staff have also been undergoing regular training sessions on the new system which has reduced our overall capacity, particularly in reception. We are advertising for a new member of staff whose role will be to develop, organise and manage the day to day delivery of our services particularly the reception area of the practice.

We have now provided details for over 2,000 of our patients to register for 'on line' services for the new system. Thank you for your patience whilst our admin staff worked through this and helped patients get to grips with the new app. We are continuing to sign up a significant number of patients for 'on line' services which should in the long run enable more people to book appointments without having to ring or queue for a member of staff.

We have now added all the clinical and administrative information collected during the changeover period from our old system back to in to SystmOne. This was in excess of 2,000 documents. We know that some patients have experienced delays in having paperwork completed and apologise for any delays.

Thank you for your patience and pleased be assured we are working hard to return to our usual levels of service.

Deirdre A Brown Dr Tim Chesworth

Practice Manager Executive Partner

Brannam Medical Centre Brannam Medical Centre

FLU APPOINTMENTS - If you are an eligible patient, please call reception to book now

Better for you, Better for Devon Survey

The NHS and local authorities in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay are working together to improve the health and wellbeing of local people.

Help shape the future for health and care in Devon by sharing your views as part of a major engagement programme.

Following the publication of the national NHS Long Term Plan, Devon is developing a local version of the plan, called Better For You, Better For Devon.

The plan will make sure we are fit for the future, providing high-quality care and better health outcomes for people and their families, through every stage of life.

Thank you for sharing your views.

GP Patient Survey

The 2019 National Patient Survey results are in......

To see how Brannam Medical Centre scored please click here. Thank you very much to all the patients who completed the survey.

Register with us

If you would like to join our practice you can collect a registration form from the surgery or download the form online. Click here to find out more

How are we doing?

Your feedback is extremely important to us as we are always trying to improve the service we offer to our patients. Click here to see how you can let us know how we are doing.