Newsletter - Autumn 2024

Practice News

Collective Action - Letter from the Partners

Dear patients

I am writing to you again now to let you know that all GP practices in England have considered taking collective action this autumn. At present, this action is to be joined up across all practices in our region, and intended to reset some of the boundaries that over time have been blurred for us.

For now, we want to give you some overall information about this.

Why has collective action been considered?

• General Practice is desperately underfunded. We receive a fixed amount per year, whether you are a patient who attends once per year or once per week.
• General Practice deals with over 90% of all patient contacts within the NHS.
• General Practice receives less than 7% of the total NHS budget (whereas we used to get about 11%).
• The real terms decrease in GP funding has been going on for about the last 10 years. 
• Our practice provides 20% more appointmnets per month than before the covid-19 pandemic.

What action is being considered?

• We will not be going on strike.
• We will not be breaching our contract with the NHS.
• Instead, we will be stopping doing work that we are not actually paid for.
• That includes options such as:
  • Limiting each GP to 25 patient contacts per day (which is deemed to be the safe limit by the European Union of GPs and the British Medical Association).
  • Stop completing administrative tasks on behalf of other services. This may include prescribing medication, issuing fit notes and chasing up results or tests.
  • Refer all patients to hospital when it is clinically right to do that. At present, we follow very complex guidelines to limit the number of patients we refer and try to treat as many as possible in General Practice.
  • Refuse to sign up to any new NHS pilot schemes that we often participate in without enough funding to cover the work we do. 
• All GP Practices in England are currently considering which steps they will take. All GP partners in England voted in a referendum recently about whether collective action was needed. Over 98% of them decided it was.

We are aware that any steps we take may impact our patients.

That is the last thing we want to do - but equally, if we don't take action now, the Partners here believe that the future of General Practice as a whole is a risk.

We will always prioritise patient safety in any actions we take. If you have any concerns, please do contact us.

Please also feel free to contact your local MP if you feel that any of the above points need action by the government and the NHS.

Yours sincerely,

Horfield Health Centre Partners

Volunteer Drivers Service

If you require this service, please contact our Transport Coordinator between 10am and 4pm (weekdays only) on 0117 951 3080 giving at least 48 hours notice. The coordinator will then find a driver who is available to pick up your request. The driver will call you before the appointment to make sure everything is good to go on the day and will take you to the appointment, wait for you, and then take you home again.

The drivers can also take you to Southmead, however, they would only be able to drop you off rather than wait for the appointment to finish.

Because we are using the same coordinator across two practices, when calling to request a trip, please state the practice you will be attending. 

A donation of £3 would be appreciated to cover the cost of petrol.

Want to become a driver?

If you are over 55 and are interested in becoming a volunteer driver, please contact us on horfield.health@nhs.net and we will contact you back with more information. Alternatively, you can visit RSVP-West for more information. 

Flu and Covid Clinics

The main Flu and Covid vaccination campaigns started a little later this year, at the start of October. NHS England advised this is because the vaccines' effectiveness wane over time, so starting later maintains protection longer through the winter.

We held two large all-day Flu and Covid booster clinics on 12th and 26th October, vaccinating nearly 2000 patients over those two days. We received incredibly positive feedback from patients attending the clinics and we were delighted that the new format of them has been so well received. We have also been running some weekday clinics and continue to offer vaccinations to patients in normal Treatment Room and GP appointments. 

The campaigns come to an end at the end of December, so until then you can also be vaccinated at any pharmacy or walk-in clinic.

Patient Achievement

We wanted to take the time to appreciate the achievement of one our patients, Alan Nabarro, who has received a medal from Diabetes UK for living with Type 1 Diabetes for 50years!

Published: Oct 30, 2024