Coronavirus (COVID-19) For health information and advice, click to read the NHS guidance pages on coronavirus.

How the Surgery is Responding to COVID-19 The current Coronavirus situation is unprecedented. We would like to give you some information and ask you to help us in these difficult times. Let us make no mistake. General Practice is a front line service. Whilst our hospitals may see the most severe cases, general practice will see the vast majority of patients with Coronavirus. Of course we hope that mild cases will remain at home, but the assessment of moderate and severe cases will need to be done by GPs. Whilst hospitals delay routine operations and care of some patients to improve capacity, these very patients will need to be looked after in general practice for longer. We will also have to try and continue to provide our usual service as best we can. The burden of work is going to be extraordinary. We also have a duty of care to minimise the risk of infection to those patients we are looking after who may not have Coronavirus but are seeing us for other conditions. We also have a duty of care to try and keep the practice open and operating in an environment where our staff or doctors may have to self-isolate for up to 2 weeks and not be available to see patients directly.   All of this means that we are going to have to make some significant changes to the way that we work. We need to be able to be both careful and reactive to the situation on a day by day basis. What the practice will be doing, and how it will effect you. Over the next few days we will be moving towards a total triage system. This means that all requests for appointments will be passed to a doctor for assessment. You may find that we deal with your condition by phone, by video link, or we may ask you to come to the surgery. We will not be offering anything other than the same day appointments, and we will have to be quite strict about timings. This is to make sure that we do not mix high risk patients with low risk patients in the surgery. How can you help us? Do you have a condition that you can self-treat? If you do then please try to do this with advice from either your pharmacist or from NHS online Do you simply need general advice? If you do, can you call 111 for this? If you feel you need to see a doctor then please try to call in the morning rather than the afternoon so that we can plan our day accordingly. Do you have access to online services in order to order your prescriptions? If not then you can download the NHS App. You do not need to come to the surgery to register to use this. Have you nominated a pharmacy for the transmission of electronic prescriptions? This will prevent the need for either you or pharmacy staff from coming  to the surgery. The nomination of a pharmacy can be done via your online app or speaking to your pharmacist or GP surgery directly.   We hope that you will help us under these unusual circumstances. Please share this email with other patients of our practice. The Doctors & staff, Waterfont & Solent Surgery

Patient Participation Group Meeting

 All patients are invited to the:

 Annual General Meeting

followed by

 ‘Two Doctors, One Audience’ 

‘Where it comes from and where it goes’ will be the subject of Dr Simon Sherwin’s talk. Explaining how the surgery is funded by the NHS and how the resources are allocated.
In the second part Dr Andy Hoyle will join Dr Sherwin in a light hearted dialogue entitled Myth Busting discussing the perceptions of patients and reality.

Questions will be welcomed from the Audience.

Thursday 17th October 2019 

7.15 pm 

Hythe and Dibden Parish Hall 

(where the Flu Clinic is held)

This meeting is being organised by the Patient Participation Group at the Waterfront and Solent Surgery. It is hoped that there will be, as usual, an enthusiastic response from the patients

Complimentary light refreshment will be available from 7.15pm.

All registered patients of the surgery are welcomed to this event

EVENING & WEEKEND APPOINTMENTS

These are now offered via the 111 service (see our website for details). Whilst increasing the flexibility and range of hours available to patients, there has been a knock on consequence to the surgery of not being able to find locum GPs to cover annual leave, as they now often work for the extended hours providers instead! This means we are stretched even further.

There are not enough GPs in country. Extending available hours is spreading the short supply of GPs more thinly.

Please consider using other options like self-management advice from NHS online, seeing a pharmacist, or even eConsult, as ways to alleviate the pressure.

Many thanks.

Flu Clinic - Stay safe this winter

Flu Clinic

We would like to remind everyone that we are taking bookings for this year's flu clinic which will take place on Saturday 5th October. Details of this year's clinic can be seen on our website here

You can book in two ways. If you are registered for our online services then you can book online using Patient Access (see here). If not, then please call our reception after 2pm and our reception staff will be happy to help.

Stay Safe this winter!

Patient Participation Group Meeting

 All patients are invited to a talk titled:

‘Helping us help you...’

 by

Amanda Glenn, 

Primary Care Commissioning Manager at NHS West Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group

Thursday 30th May 2019

7.15 pm

Hythe and Dibden Parish Hall

(where the Flu Clinic is held)

This meeting is being organised by the Patient Participation Group at the Waterfront and Solent Surgery. It is hoped that there will be, as usual, an enthusiastic response from the patients

Complimentary light refreshment will be available from 7.15pm.

All registered patients of the surgery are welcomed to this event

Admin staff shortages and staff training

Following the departure of two members of our admin staff in quick succession we are currently short-staffed. A recruitment process is in place and will be complete soon. 

However, our new team members will need training and support so this will put an additional burden on the remaining staff. 

In the coming months please be considerate as we build our new team up to its maximum efficiency!