PEG Newsletter Winter 2024 - 2025

Welcome to our Winter Newsletter and another edition packed full of useful information and Practice news

Everything is important but do please read updates about our still new triage arrangements and how this has helped ensure that we are better able to offer an early consultation with a doctor when there is an urgent need.

We have received many positive comments about the call back arrangements helping patients avoid lengthy waiting times before speaking to a Medical Receptionist.

In addition to sharing further information about blood tests and carers we would like to wish all our patients good health over the coming year.

Happy New Year!

GP led triage (GP in reception) - update

GP Led Triage was introduced at Shoreham Health Centre at the end of October 2022. After a year of learning, it was rolled out to Manor Practice and Northbourne Medical Centre in November 2023. We took the step this summer to merge the Reception teams, with the aim of offering resilient, good quality and realistic services to all AHP patients, regardless of registered site, whilst also trying to find innovative ways to manage our ever increasing demand, which exceeds the resources available.

What is GP Led Triage?

Every phone call to AHP requesting a GP appointment is triaged by a GP working in Reception. You will be asked a series of questions by one of our Medical Receptionists and your responses will be triaged by a GP, who determines the best outcome for you. This could be e.g. an urgent face-to-face or telephone appointment, a routine appointment, a referral to see a High Street Pharmacist, advice over the phone (via the Medical Receptionist), a direct prescription, a GP text message contact, a request for further details or a request for you to attend A&E/Urgent Treatment Centre.

You are always only one person away from the GP regardless of what time you call us. We aim for the lines to be open from 8am to 12.30pm and from 2pm to 6.30pm, with appointments being available through the course of the day. We would recommend contacting us in the afternoon if you consider your problem to be non-urgent.

The best way to request a GP appointment is to call us, especially with the colder and wet weather upon us now. The queues might appear long as queries for all sites are being processed through a single site reception. We will answer your call as soon as we can if you decide to hold on the line. However, we would encourage you to use the call back option – your place in the queue remains unchanged regardless of which option you use. If you have a smart phone, we will send you a text message with a link to view the virtual queue. Of course, you can request the GP appointment at the surgery in person by filling in the triage form (your request will be dealt with in a similar way as if you have had called us, so at times, please be prepared for a long wait to learn the outcome) or by submitting an eConsult via our website.

This merged system is still new, and as we head in to an inevitably busy winter, we will need to continue to learn and improve as we go. We are very much aware that GP Led Triage is not suitable for every single case and every patient, but we are proud of what we have achieved and we hope for your continued support and understanding. As always, your feedback is welcome, as this will help us to appreciate your needs better.

Community Health Fair - save the date - 8th March 2025

We would like to invite you all to a Community Health Fair organised by Adur Health Partnership and the Patient Engagement Group in conjunction with Lancing and Sompting Practices. It will be held at the Shoreham Centre on 8th March 2025 from 10am to 4pm.

The purpose of the Health Fair is to bring the Practices and the local community together to encourage healthy lifestyles and support people to manage health conditions well.

Blood Tests Explained

There is a lot of misunderstanding about the significance of blood tests in assessing medical conditions and this is not often explained fully during a routine appointment with your doctor, which can lead to unnecessary worry and concern.

Blood tests can give your healthcare professionals a lot of information but also have significant limitations.

They can see if certain elements in your blood are in a normal range but in many cases, blood tests are only part of the information your GP needs to make a diagnosis of a health condition.

There is no mechanism in place within the NHS for “routine blood tests” for all. Individuals with certain medical conditions or taking specific medications do require regular testing, and at AHP we will automatically contact those patients when these tests are due.

We may well also suggest that you have a blood test directly from GP Triage in preparation for another appointment or as an initial screening process.

Most Common Blood Tests

The most common blood tests your GP would ask for are full blood count, kidney, liver, and thyroid function tests, HbA1c (blood sugar marker) and lipid profile.

The results are used to:

• Show how well your organs like your liver, kidneys, or thyroid are working
• Check for bacterial or viral infections
• Check levels of red and white blood cells and platelets which looks for anaemia or clotting disorders
• Check for diabetes
• Check cholesterol levels

Lots of results come back very slightly out of the “normal range” and may still be marked by the clinician as normal. This is done in the context of your full results, your previous results and on the basis that normal range only accounts for 95% of normal results i.e. 5% of normal people lie outside this range. If your results are considered normal, this will not usually be communicated back to you.

Some blood tests are very specific and can only be done in hospitals or specialist health care settings. One of these is a troponin blood test, which can help in the assessment of a suspected heart attack. So if we ask you from triage to attend A&E with your chest pain, this is one of the reasons why. Tumour markers are blood tests designed to identify proteins that may be found in the blood in higher quantities than normal when some cancers are present, such as the PSA prostate cancer test. However, these tests are not part of an established screening programme as they are non-specific (often raised in non-cancer conditions) and are generally not useful without an understanding of the whole clinical picture. A blood test can detect some blood or immune system cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma. It will not detect all solid organ cancers (such as lung, breast or colon).

Sadly, blood tests cannot uncover everything. For example, neurological diseases such as stroke, motor neurone disease, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis are not diagnosable from blood tests. So whilst they can be useful for making an assessment of your overall health and exclude particular conditions, which can be reassuring, they cannot tell us everything. Therefore, if your blood results are normal but you have ongoing concerns about a particular health issue, do contact us for further input via the GP Led Triage line.

AHP Unpaid Carers Support

Adur Health Partnership are identifying patients with caring responsibilities so we can better support you. Do you help look after a family member or friend who would struggle without your support because of their illness, frailty, disability, mental health problem or addiction? If so then you are an unpaid Carer.

Please look at our website for Carers support information. You will be able to register on line, check your carers status and much more. If you don’t have access to the internet then please collect a Carers registration form from reception and our Carers Champion Team will be in touch with you once you have submitted this form.

Patient Engagement Group Meetings

Don't forget that the Patient Engagement Group (PEG) meets at the Shoreham Centre between 6.15pm and 7.15pm on the fourth Wednesday of every month. Please come along to share ideas and learn more about how your local surgeries work. For further details please contact us. 

Published: Jan 22, 2025