❗️IMPORTANT PATIENT INFORMATION:❗️

Dear Patients,

As the winter and colder weather sets in we wish to highlight the services available to help you. Our staff are working above and beyond to try and cope with the huge increase in demand that we are experiencing.

On average over the last few months we have seen around 220-230 urgent care appointments each week, on top of all our usual routine work. Last week this urgent appointment figure was over 320. Clearly this unprecedented demand is being felt across the whole NHS system and country, but it is obviously going to have an impact on the routine work we can offer given the extra resources we are having to redeploy to help manage the overwhelming and unsustainable demand on our urgent appointments.

We have had two clinicians leave the practice due to relocation over the past few weeks, this coupled with the usual winter pressures & now the addition of being extremely busy with understandable parental concern about unwell children due to Group A Strep we are seeing unprecedented demand on our services.
We have two new clinicians joining us in the New Year, however we would ask that you bear with us and are kind to our staff over this period.

Please also be mindful that our e-consult system is under the same demand for appointments as other methods, so there will be considerable delays with these also.

We are trying our best to accommodate what we can but there has to be a safe limit to what can be offered and therefore we will be asking (if appropriate) you to consider using more appropriate or other alternatives if seeking advice/care for minor ailments.

These may include;

Petersfield Urgent Treatment Centre (previously the minor injuries unit):
https://www.porthosp.nhs.uk/departments-and-services/petersfield-urgent-treatment-centre/96457

Pharmacy; https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/pharmacy/find-a-pharmacy

Advice for parents of Children & Young People;
https://what0-18.nhs.uk/parentscarers/worried-your-child-unwell

Winter help & support;
https://www.hantsiowhealthandcare.org.uk/your-health/winter-help-and-support

NHS 111; https://111.nhs.uk/

Mental Health;
https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/