Throughout the pandemic we have strived to make the surgery as safe as possible for all our patients and staff. We will continue to do so going forward.
Although the Government is relaxing the COVID rules from the 19th July, healthcare settings are waiting for further infection control advice from the NHS before we are able to change our current procedures. Therefore until advised, patients will need to continue to wear a mask, socially distance, use hand sanitiser when attending our surgeries; and staff will continue to wear PPE. If you are not attending any of our sites for a face to face appointment please consider whether your visit to the surgery is necessary. At times when our surgeries are full we may ask patients to wait outside or return to their cars until their appointment.
We do understand that it can be frustrating but we know that when people come to us they are sick and vulnerable (and some cannot receive the covid vaccinations due to medical reasons) so we feel it would be wrong to not take these small precautions that can protect people.
In terms of opening up, as many of you know, we have never been shut and in fact have consulted with much higher numbers of patients than we did pre-covid (face to face, by phone, by e consult and by video), not counting vaccinating 90% of the adult population twice in the last 6 months. We are however delighted to advise that we will be able to offer patients the ability to again book face to face appointments from early August. These appointments will be available online & by phone in the coming weeks and we will continue to offer a cohort of urgent appointments each day for those that feel their need cannot wait. We remind patients that non urgent appointments should be booked with their named GP to ensure continuity of care.
As our phone lines remain busy we would remind patients that are registered for online services to check regularly as appointments are staggered in their release. As well as booking appointments online patients can request medication and view their medical records.
Rothschild house Group has come so far in trying to minimise the impact of Covid and we are sure you understand that we need to keep our surgeries as safe for ALL patients as we can.
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