We are sad to see Dr Hinton retire from general practice after a long and happy time at Station road and welcome Jan Johnson a nurse practitioner to the team .She was a former practice nurse at Station Road before qualifying as a nurse practitioner and now and is now employed by ourselves. To further compensate Dr Hinton’s retirement the remaining partners have each increased their availability as detailed under Hours. We have also taken on Dr’s Chaudhry Gilchrist and Kay who each do 2 sessions at the surgery.

Extended Hours
We now offer pre booked appointments with a GP in the evenings between 6:30pm and 7:45pm Monday to Thursday. These are not meant for walk in patients and access will be denied to those without a pre booked appointment.

Triage
Further we have introduced the “Triage System to manage your medical complaints more effectively. At times you will be speaking to our Nurse Practitioner who will take appropriate action in view of the complaint that you have. This may be an appointment or a prescription or advice.

Duty Doctor
As usual duty doctor appointments for 48hr access are available .You will always see a clinician in these appointments and this will generally be a physician though at times it may be a nurse practitioner.

Darzi
The anticipated opening of a Darzi centre in Sowerby Bridge has now been put on hold and we hope to fill the gap in services ourselves PCT allowing.

GP Registrar
We are looking at expanding in other ways by taking on an additional registrar and Dr Jegede is hoping to join Dr Kazi as a GP Trainer in the practice. Our current registrar is Dr Qureshi and appointments can be made with her in the usual way. As a training practice we often have young doctors, medical students and nurses in attendance during surgery times. You will be alerted on the LED screen in reception if a doctor is accompanied by someone in training. You are encouraged to inform the receptionist on desk if you would rather see the doctor, nurse practitioner or practice nurse alone before going in for your appointment.

Patient Survey
We recently completed a survey regarding patient experience of their consultations with the doctors, registrar, nurse practitioner, practice nurses and health care assistant and it was reassuring that the vast majority of patients were happy that the problems they came in with were dealt with satisfactorily and that very few had problems with their consultations. We are planning to install a suggestion box in the waiting room so that patients can – anonymously if desired --make constructive suggestion, comments and criticisms which will then be reviewed at our regular practice meetings.

Contraceptive Services
Dr Jegede is now providing contraceptive services for those patients requiring long acting reversible contraception. This is in the form of intra- uterine coils or the intradermal implanon implant which goes into the upper arm. Anyone interested should book a routine appointment and will then be referred onto the appropriate clinic.

Chlamydia
We now offer Chlamydia screening for any patient aged between 15-25 years and packs can be found in the surgery toilets. These can then be handed in at reception or there are postal packs which can be posted anonymously. The form sent includes your mobile telephone number and you will be contacted by text with your results and advice regarding any treatment or follow up required.

Accident and Emergency
We have slightly higher than average casualty attendance rate and we should encourage patients to try and attend surgery unless their problem is a clear emergency or an accident which could not be dealt with at the practice.
A recent survey by the Primary Care Trust looked at life expectancy rates in Calderdale and it is pleasing to see the patients of Sowerby Bridge have a higher than average life expectancy and graphs of the different rates across Calderdale can be viewed in reception.

Walk in Centre
Your nearest walk in centre is Park Community Practice this is situated in within the Horne Street Health Centre, Hanson Lane, Halifax. There is no need to make an appointment and if you feel it necessary the times opening 8am to 8pm every day including bank holidays.

Clinical Governance
Clinical governance and staff training days are held once a month in the afternoon. On these days the surgery will be closed and immediate problems will be dealt with by our out of hour’s provider. All calls will automatically be transferred. Please see Hours for details of training days.

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