As the lockdown restrictions ease, we wanted to update you on how we plan to continue working over the coming months.

We have made many changes over the course of the pandemic to ensure we can continue to safely provide services to our patients. Many of these will continue for the timebeing.

We will continue our telephone-first model of care, but want to reassure patients that if we feel you need to be seen we will continue to arrange for you to come to the surgery for an appointment.

We will continue to encourage patients to have their prescriptions sent to a nominated pharmacy. From the 12th of April we will no longer take requests for repeat prescriptions over the phone.

To order, you should use Patient Access or the NHS App, email us or drop a paper request slip into the box outside the surgery. Our phone lines are very busy and we want to make sure patients can contact us for urgent medical matters.

We continue to ask that you only come to the surgery for booked appointments. Our patient care navigators will not be able to book appointments or arrange prescription requests at the desk for you.

We will also be continuing the vaccination clinics which can often mean high volumes of patients coming through the building – keep an eye on our Facebook page to see when these are being run and when to avoid coming up to the surgery.

If you do attend the practice, you will be asked to wear a mask (unless medically exempt), use hand gel and maintain a 2 metre distance from other people. We still need to follow the rules to ensure we minimise the risk from Covid-19. Anyone who refuses to comply will be asked to leave the building. We must do all we can to protect our staff and patients.

Please continue to help us keep safe, while providing a good quality service to our patients.

Thank you.

Drs Kerfoot, Pegden, Hempton, Hickson, March, Williams and Floyd