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New Telephone System (October 2007) From 9th October Tel: 0844 815 1072 Fax: 0844 815 1073 The new telephone system was installed in October. This system allows you to choose the most appropriate selection from a single telephone number. It will then notify you as to how busy the lines are at the time you have called so you can call back at a different time if the problem is not of an urgent nature. The selection you can choose are as follows and prioritised in order of the most frequently used:
The calls are charged at BTs local call rate on a standard line, it is NOT a higher rate 0870 type number. If you have a ‘telephone package’ which promotes ‘free’ local calls they sometimes exclude the 0844 number. If that is the case, ask your provider to include our number to the free section of your contract. The cost for a 4 minute call to a 0844 number is under 20p from a landline, but will vary with calls from a mobile. Flu Vaccinations (Autumn 2007) Influenza vaccination have been completed. If you have missed the clinics & are within the recommended groups listed below, please phone 0844 815 1072. Influenza (flu) is a highly infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. There are three types of influenza virus: A, B and C. Influenza A and B viruses cause virtually all of the clinical illness. The symptoms of influenza C infection are usually mild. Flu occurs every year mainly during the winter months. The influenza virus attacks the respiratory tract (the ear, nose and throat). The virus is mainly spread by respiratory droplets in the air produced by coughing or sneezing. It can also be spread by, for example, hand to eye contact after touching the respiratory droplets on another person or object. The incubation period before onset of symptoms is between one and three days. Although most people recover from flu within a week, for some people the infection is more serious and leads to complications. These illnesses may require treatment in hospital and can be life-threatening especially in the elderly, people with heart or chest disease and those in poor health. It is recommended the following groups should be vaccinated:
Dr. Heatley (Dec 2006) took a sabbatical in Hanover (Germany), where he worked in an A&E department . He had a most interesting time with lots of stories to tell. His patients can always ask him about his trip when they come to see him. GPwSIs- GP with a special interest (April 2006) Dr. Hwa-Lon Liu continues to provide ENT services for the whole PCT. Dr. Jonathan Heatley started a similar service in April 2006 in Dermatology. Dr. Sheikh (April 2006) hung up his stethoscope after 40 years as a doctor & we will all miss him greatly. He has always been very hard working & so helpful in covering or swapping duties, and was a founder member of Holbrook Surgery back in 1995 when it started out in Portacabins (in the field that later became All Saints Primary School). So it is with sadness & gratitude that we said goodbye and wish him an enjoyable and well earned retirement. He is a keen birdwatcher & plans to help out as a volunteer with various bird sanctuaries. We had a box at the front desk for any contributions by patients towards a retirement gift for him. We are pleased to announce patients have given generously & we will be purchasing him a digital SLR camera and holiday voucher for his birdwatching.
His patients have been split into two halves & taken on by the two female partners, Drs. Ann Williams & Nadia Ziyada who have until now been half time. Dr. Williams has taken all patients whose family name begins with A up to K, and Dr. Ziyada has taken on patients from L up to Z. They had been looking forward to their full time commitment and the better continuity of care that comes with being full time. Unfortunately, the other partners cannot take on any of Dr. Sheikh's list due to having full lists already. Dr. Preet Singh (Feb 2006) joined us as a salaried GP. He was a registrar here in 2004 and very popular with all the staff and those patients he looked after. We are taking him on to help us and also to look after Horsham Hospital Horizon Unit which is a new 38 bed, nurse run intermediate care for the elderly ward. They need a doctor to cover them, so Dr. Singh will split his time between them & Holbrook Surgery where he will be doing regular surgeries. He was a senior hospital doctor at Crawley Hospital working in the care of the elderly & medical departments before becoming a GP. We will find his specialized medical knowledge very helpful. He has a wife training to become a consultant psychiatrist, and one daughter. New Telephone System (November 2005) This has now been installed. The 2 main changes are:
Computer System (October 2005) The latest improvement is an electronic check in system at reception. Please use it to let us know when you arrive at the surgery for your appointment to see the doctors or nurses. Additionally, we have a scanning system that reads the hospital discharge letters. It can then analyse what it has read and extract the patients name the diagnosis and the relevant hospital specialist. It is just as well that it can do all this because the hospital computer systems are unable to send or receive any correspondence electronically. This should change soon as the government is investing heavily in IT. Our practice manager represents Horsham on the E-booking project. This aims to link all different hospitals and GP surgeries electronically so that your notes can be available to any specialist you see. Nationally, only a handful of GP computer systems are recognised as being up to the job and we are relieved and pleased that our system ‘Vision’ is the one of them. The new contract (2004) As you will have heard GPs voted in favour of the new work contract by a majority of 80%. Nationally GP morale is low and recruitment is a problem so the profession and the government worked together to modernise our terms and conditions of work. The biggest change is the new Out of Hours system whereby GPs will opt out of doing a 24hr service and the Primary Care Trust will take this over sometime during this year. As Saturday mornings are out of hours these will also disappear probably around July but there should be a service for emergencies run from Horsham Hospital. The Base at Billingshurst will disappear and probably be replaced by a base at Horsham Hospital, although there are no hard and fast details as yet. Emergency calls out of hours will be routed through a central call centre based in Worthing to achieve economies of scale. It is also proposed to try to replace some of the GPs on call with paramedics and nurses; casualty and the ambulance service will probably also play a greater role. We are currently waiting for more details and will keep you informed. The second major change with this new contract is that practice income is now dependent on meeting various ‘targets’. Already we are well on our way to meeting these through the use of our computer system but you may have received a simple questionnaire to fill in while waiting for an appointment and this is to fill in some of the information gaps. Through all our hard work, Holbrook stands to achieve nearly 95% of Quality targets. Please let us know of any change of address, Tel no. or personal details.
Saturday Mornings at Holbrook Surgery
(2004)
As part of the Government's reforms to
recruit and retain GPs for the NHS, a new GP Contract came into force on the 1st
April 2004. |
Stained Glass Window (2004) There is a stained glass window at the entrance of the surgery. It was commissioned by Dr Jonathan Heatley from Sandra Vallens, in honour of his father Dr Norman Heatley. It represents the story of the pioneering work on Penicillin during WWII undertaken at Oxford University. The top panel shows the ‘Radcliffe Camera’ a building typical of the University architecture. The lower panel shows three penicillin moulds greatly magnified, and superimposed over them the growing vessel used to produce larger quantities of this mould. This vessel was designed by Norman Heatley, who supervised its production by the Staffordshire potteries in the middle of the 1942 winter. Very few of these remain but one is on display in the main waiting room. In 1943 it took about 6 months to produce as much penicillin as is in one modern tablet. Two members of the team Drs Florey and Chain received the Nobel prize for medicine for this work. Norman Heatley was awarded the OBE
We congratulate (2004) Dr Paul Woods and his wife Ally on the birth of their second daughter- Evie. Email Viruses (Oct 2003) We received the W32.Blaster.Worm virus on our website/email computer via an email attachment on 12/8/03. Fortunately, we managed to eradicate it. We would encourage all those contacting us via email should...
Your assistance is much appreciated. If our website computer was to go down, it would cause a lot of inconvenience to those using this service. Measles Outbreaks in West Sussex, March 2003 Horsham Cycling (2002) The doctors are actively promoting cycling in Horsham as a means to keep fit and healthy. Dr. Heatley participates in the Horsham Cycling Campaign and he meets regularly with the town planners at Holbrook Surgery to discuss the implementation of cycle lanes for the Horsham urban area. Interesting Places (2002) Nothing to do with medicine, but thought it would be a good idea to have a page showing interesting places from around the World where our staff and patients have visited. We have done thousands of travel vaccinations over the years & felt this would be an ideal forum for you to share your holiday experiences with us. Click here to see pictures so far. New Practice Nurse (July 2002) We welcome a new addition to our practice nursing team, Helen Power, who replaces Sheila Smith. She an experienced practice nurse & is a trained midwife.
ENT at Holbrook Surgery (2002) Dr. Liu gained the Postgraduate Diploma in ENT (PGDipENT) in November 2001, and now runs a GP with special interest (GPwSI) clinic on Wednesday mornings at Holbrook Surgery. The clinic is actively supported by Mr. John Brookes (consultant ENT surgeon) and takes referrals from GPs in the surrounding area, with a referring population of 80,000. Most patients are seen within 2 weeks of referral. The clinic utilises a nasendoscope, microsuction & audiology. A patient satisfaction questionnaire was sent out recently. The replies were very encouraging with all patients expressing satisfaction with the explanations given to them about their conditions. Daily Telegraph/Energis & 'Doctor of the Year' Awards (Nov 2001) We won a 'Special Commendation' in the Daily Telegraph/Energis awards for customer services. These awards were open to all UK businesses and we were the only primary health care business to be so honoured. In the same month we reached the finals of the 'Doctor of the Year' awards in the Innovation category. The judges were interested in partner specialisation, our exercise and cycling initiatives, the new building design with notes upstairs, the commuter surgeries and 48 hour access for non urgent appointments. They also looked at our work with the mentally ill restoring the local canal which is a type of 'Green Gym', funded by the income from vasectomies. They also noted the unique Vanishing Veins clinic using visiting French doctors, our regular newsletters and finally this Website which is constantly updated. The winner of this category was a GP in Northern Ireland who has recently set up a teenage Health clinic. MMR Vaccination (Sept 2001) There has been much publicity about MMR vaccine raising questions about its safety. This caused much anxiety, especially for parents of young children, even though there is no evidence to support the theories raised in the publicity. Many parents have been left understandably unclear about the true risks and benefits: and unclear about what is best for their child's health. However, substantial research has been published which has shown that MMR does not cause long-term problems. The following summarises the work that has been done. A small group of researchers at the Royal Free Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group (RFIBDSG) originally suggested that there might be a link between measles and/or measles containing vaccine and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and, latterly, autism. This theory, and the work of the RFIDBG, has now been independently reviewed several times. It has been fully and carefully reviewed by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and the Committee on Safety of Medicine (CSM), which concluded that, on the scientific evidence available, there is no link between MMR vaccine and IBD or autism. The latest research: Two important scientific studies were reported on 11 June 1999, one in 'Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance', the other in the Lancet. Neither of these two independent studies found a link between MMR vaccine and autism. These findings add to the substantial body of evidence already showing there is no link between MMR and autism or Crohn's disease or inflammatory bowel disease. The findings of the Medical Research Council: At the Chief Medical Officer's request the Medical Research Council has held a scientific seminar to review the work of the Royal Free Hospital (RFH) group. The meeting included leading experts in virology, epidemiology, immunology, paediatrics, child psychiatry and gastroenterology. At this seminar the RFH group were given time to fully present their work. The meeting reached the clear conclusions, that:
Giving the three vaccines separately: It has been proposed that MMR vaccine might be given instead as three separate injections. This suggestion, which was made by one researcher - although not via published papers - is unsupported by any scientific evidence and would expose children to an increased risk of disease while waiting unnecessarily between immunisations. Such views about immunisation are not generally supported by the UK medical profession or the international expert community, including the World Health Organisation (WHO). No country in the world recommends MMR as three separate injections. Hundreds of millions of doses of MMR vaccine have been used widely around the world (in 33 European countries at least, plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and in the United States for over 25 years. MMR has an excellent safety record. Out of Hours Service (July 2001) As of 1st July 2001 The Holbrook Doctors joined the West Sussex Doctors On-call Co-operative. The on-call number from that date will be 01403-785586. The Co-op is run by GPs in West Sussex and is based in The Medical Centre, Roman Way, Billingshurst.
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