During the pandemic, General Practice has seen a significant increase in contacts and requests from our patients and this has been felt by our practice team.
We are have remained open and have dealt with a significant increase in incoming requests which on most days has been between 40-60% more than an average day before the pandemic. On some occasions this demand has been as high as 90% more than a pre-pandemic working day.
Our staff, nurses, and GP have worked incredibly hard to provide the level of care we know our patients expect and we feel we have managed this well throughout the pandemic but as this demand continues, we would like to share a video prepared by Dr Kerri Neylon, Deputy medical Director for Primary Care in Greater Glasgow & Clyde. You can view the video by clicking here.
Within the short video, Dr Neylon describes the current pressures on General Practice and the new ways in which you as a patient will be accessing GP services. Dr Neylon also suggests alternative services that can be accessed that may be more useful than contacting the GP. For instance, you can contact a Dentist for any dental issues or an Optician for any eye problems. They are best suited to assist with these concerns. Community Pharmacists can assist with a range of conditions and can now prescribe for a selection of conditions using the Pharmacy First Service There is also a wealth of information and self-help guides available at NHS inform.
If you are awaiting contact or results regarding a hospital appointment, please do not call the GP to check these. We do not automatically receive hospital results and cannot chase appointments. You need to call the hospital with these queries. For any queries relating to referrals, please call the referral management line on 0800 592 087.
For any health needs outwith surgery hours and which are not routine health queries, you can call 111 for advice. In an emergency always call 999.
If you have any queries regarding medication, we ask that you check with your usual pharmacy before calling the GP as they can help with most medication queries. This helps free up GP time to deal with the increasing demand we face on a daily basis.
We are also seeing an increasing number of last minute requests for medication which has run out and is required urgently. Please try to ensure that you order medication a week in advance of running out or ask your pharmacy if they can manage requests for you. This saves emergency requests coming through to the on-call doctor and again helps free up any emergency slots with GP’s.
We understand that due to the current demand on our service, you may have to wait longer for an appointment or for medication requests. We assure you we are all working as hard as we can and ask that you refrain from using threats or verbal abuse when talking to practice staff, who always do what they can to help you.
The way we currently operate will continue so long as we are dealing with restrictions associated with COVID19 and we ask for your patience going forward.
The whole team at Brackenbrae Surgery would like to thank all of our patients for their support and understanding throughout the pandemic.