Changes to long term conditions reviews at The Saltaire and Windhill Medical Partnership
Following what has been a challenging year, in which we’ve had to adapt our ways of working to ensure COVID safety and during which we have had to step aside from our usual priorities to meet the needs of the pandemic, we are delighted to be able to announce that we are now looking to restart our rolling programme of medication and health reviews in the near future.
Since early 2020 we have been exploring new systems for medication and chronic disease reviews which, we hope, will enable us to provide a better experience for both patients and our staff. Going forward we aim to proactively contact all of our patients who are living with at least one “Long Term Condition”, eg high blood pressures, a heart condition, diabetes, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, significant mental ill health, as well as several others, and invite them in for an initial health check. This appointment could include blood and/or urine tests, measuring blood pressure, pulse, weight and height, a general well-being review and specific checks depending on the conditions a person is living with. This might take anything from 10 to 50 minutes, depending on the circumstance. Following on from this we may arrange a further telephone or face to face appointment with an appropriate health professional for a more in-depth discussion.
All patients will be offered a review at least once a year. As far as possible (though not exclusively) this will be linked to their month of birth, ie if your birthday is August 20th you can expect to be contacted in August to invite you to book your review appointment.
We realise that, for many of our patients, the past year has been an extremely difficult time. We recognise that many people are still uncomfortable about the thought of going out and about and may be anxious about visiting the surgery. Since the start of the pandemic we have taken every necessary precaution to protect our patients and staff from the risks of exposure to coronavirus infection and we would want to reassure anyone receiving an invitation for a health check over the coming weeks that we continue to take these measures extremely seriously. Please speak to a member of our staff if you receive an invitation and you still feel unsure about whether you should attend.
