Extended Access at South King Street Medical Centre every Tuesday until 8pm
Making Access easier for all
Evening and Weekend Appointments are available with all clinical staff for routine pre-booked services. We are committed to improving access to primary care services.
This includes making appointments available at times that are convenient for you. If you: ● find it difficult to attend an appointment during the working day. ● are a busy parent with small children; ● or rely on working carers to take you to appointments.
then this service is here to support you!
Evening and weekend appointments – ‘8 Til L8’
About the service
The Fylde Coast NHS has arranged for additional appointments to be provided outside of normal GP practice hours by the Fylde Coast Integrated Urgent Care Service.
The service offers pre-bookable and same-day routine primary care appointments with a range of clinicians including GPs, nurses and health care assistants. Appointments are available for both face-to-face and virtual (telephone or video) consultations.
Please be aware that this is not a walk-in service – you must have an appointment.
The service employs local clinicians from the Fylde Coast, where possible.
Appointments
An appointment must have been booked in advance of visiting the service.
When your GP practice is open To book an appointment, contact your GP practice.
When your GP practice is closed Appointments may also be booked when the service in Blackpool, Fleetwood, Freckleton, Garstang and Over Wyre is open, by calling 01253 952950.
Appointments are for pre-bookable and same-day routine and not for urgent care. If urgent care is required please call NHS111 for advice.
When you book an appointment the practice will ask you for consent to share your detailed GP record with the clinician providing the care.
Should you need to cancel your appointment please contact your GP practice. If your GP practice is closed, please call 01253 952950 to cancel.
Where to go
Blackpool:
Whitegate Health Centre 150 Whitegate Drive Blackpool FY3 9ES
Fleetwood:
Fleetwood Health and Wellbeing Centre Dock Street Fleetwood FY7 6HP
Freckleton:
Freckleton Health Centre Douglas Drive Freckleton PR4 1RY
Garstang:
Garstang Medical Practice Kepple Lane Garstang PR3 1PB
Covid Vaccination Record
Primary Care Network Team
What is a Primary Care Network?
The definition of a Primary Care Network is to enable the provision of proactive, accessible, coordinated and more integrated primary and community care improving outcomes for patients.
They are formed around natural communities based on GP registered lists, serving populations of around 30,000 to 50,000.
The Central West Primary Care Network
The Central West Primary Care Network are a collaboration of 3 GP Practices, South King Street Medical Centre, St Paul’s Medical Centre and Adelaide Street Surgery. We serve a population of registered patients on our list equating to approximately 34,000 patients.
Networks need to be small enough to provide the personal care valued by both patients and GPs, but large enough to have impact through deeper collaboration between practices and others in the local health (community and primary care) and social care system. We are looking to provide a platform for providers of care to be sustainable into the longer term.
PCN Services
Care Home Team
The PCN Care Home Team works closely alongside local care homes, GP practices and other community professionals to deliver enhanced care to our care home residents. This team consists of:
Occupational therapist’s work with anyone who may be experiencing physical, psychological and/or social problems, either from birth or as a result of trauma, illness or ageing. An OTs goal is to help patients have independent, productive, and satisfying lives .
A care co-ordinator is a trained health professional who helps by consulting with patients and determining their needs, developing care plans, coordinating patient-care services, educating patients about their condition, and working with the care team to evaluate interventions.
Enhanced Access
From 1st October 2022 patients will have Enhanced Access to appointments with GPs, nurses and Health Care Assistants outside normal working hours.
The Fylde Coast NHS has arranged for additional appointments to be provided outside of normal GP practice hours by the Fylde Coast Integrated Urgent Care Service.
The service offers pre-bookable and same-day routine primary care appointments with a range of clinicians including GPs, nurses and health care assistants.
Please be aware that this is not a walk-in service – you must have an appointment booked by your GP practice
The service employs local clinicians from the Fylde Coast, where possible.
The Central West Primary Care Network offers extended hours appointments across all four of the network surgeries and at the Whitegate Drive Health Centre.
PCN pharmacists assist practice pharmacists in their role, providing additional support to GP practices with medication queries, clinical audits, clinical documents, and with in-depth medication reviews. In a medication review the PCN Pharmacist will have more time to discuss each medication in detail and appointments may last up to 40 minutes depending on the number of medications you are taking.
Pharmacy technicians play an important role working alongside pharmacists in general practice and in community pharmacy. Pharmacy technicians are different to pharmacists as they are not able to prescribe or make clinical decisions. Pharmacy technicians work under pharmacist supervision to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines by both patients and prescribers.
First Contact physiotherapist
You can book an appointment directly with an experienced physiotherapist via your GP practice reception which means you won’t need to wait for an appointment or referral from a GP.
This means you can get better and quicker care, while GP appointments can be freed up for patients with other conditions.
You may be eligible for an appointment with a physiotherapist if you have new symptoms of the following problems:
all soft tissue injuries, sprains or sports injuries
arthritis – any joint
possible problems with muscles, ligaments, tendons, or bones, e.g. tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, ankle sprains
spinal pain including lower back pain, mid-back pain, and neck pain
spinal-related pain in arms or legs, including nerve symptoms, e.g. pins and needles or numbness
changes to walking
post-orthopaedic surgery
The physiotherapist will:
assess you and diagnose what’s happening
give expert advice on how best to manage your condition
To access a first contact physiotherapist, contact the our reception team.
Wellbeing Team
Social Prescribing link workers
Social prescribing is a way of connecting patients (18+) to services and social groups in the local area in order to improve their overall health and wellbeing. Social prescribing link workers can spend time with a patient, finding out what really matters to them, and putting them in touch with the people and activities that might help them to feel better. Our link workers understand the social, economic, and environmental factors that affect our health, and have a good knowledge of supportive local resources in Lytham St Annes and the wider area. They work holistically to help patients take control of their own health and wellbeing.
The groups and activities that link workers connect patients with include friendship groups, walking groups, choirs, gardening, and volunteering opportunities. Link workers can support patients to the first session of a group if they feel nervous about going alone. Link workers can also support patients to navigate the services and organisations available for issues such as debt, housing, domestic violence, and employment.
People that might be helped by social prescribing include people who are lonely or isolated, unpaid carers, and anyone whose health is affected by non-medical issues.
Associate Psychological Practitioners
The Associate Psychological Practitioners (APPs) offer wellbeing interventions to patients who are struggling with mild mental health concerns such as low mood, low level anxiety, sleep problems. The APPs can provide advice and support with mindfulness, stress management, and learning coping skills.
Mental Health Practitioner’s
Mental healthpractitioners support patients(both adults and children) with their mental health, typically seeing patients referred to them by their GP colleagues.
They work with patients to support shared decision making about self-management, enable access to treatment services, and where appropriate conduct brief psychological interventions.
The role will involve liaison with practice clinicians, as well as liaison with secondary care, social workers and voluntary sector staff, where appropriate, and making best use of third sector and other community opportunities for promotion of patient wellbeing and maintenance of mental health.
Paramedics
Increased pressure and demand on primary care services have been a catalyst for more opportunities for Paramedics to work in this environment.
First contact paramedics are autonomous, diagnostic clinicians with experience in handling undifferentiated and unpredictable cases; conducting an array of clinical assessment, diagnostic, and treatment activities; and directing and signposting care and have been transitioning into enhanced and advanced practice roles within General Practice for a number of years.
#Support Your Surgery – GPC England Campaign
Support your GP surgery so it can be there to support you.
General practice in England has faced an extremely challenging time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Face-to-face contact has been limited to protect patients and reduce the risk of infection. But even after the pandemic, general practice will continue to struggle to meet the needs of patients.
With the number of GPs falling (due to lack of recruitment and retention) whilst the population rises, demands on GPs are higher than ever. There are millions of patients whose treatment has been delayed due to the pandemic, more tests to administer and additional bureaucracy. GP workload is becoming unmanageable.
GPs and their teams cannot meet this challenge without more support. In signing this petition, we are calling on the UK Government to provide the funding and commitment needed to urgently increase the number of GPs, practice nurses and other practice staff and to improve the premises in which they work. This will help GP practices in England to meet the growing needs of people in our ties, providing the care we and our families need.
Please click on the link below to sign the petition :-
We are aware of concerns being raised regarding the sharing of GP patient data starting next month.
NHS Digital plans to collect data from GP practices nationally to support planning and research for future services.
This does not include sharing personally identifiable information.
If you do not wish for your data to be shared, you can opt out. In order to ensure your data is not shared at the time of the first data extraction on 1 July, you should do this by 23 June. You can opt out at a later date if you wish to.
NHS extended vaccination programme for flu in ages 50-64 years.
The practice has made excellent progress in reaching vaccination targets for children, over 65 year old patients and for patients with high risk conditions. In this unusual COVID19 year the NHS is undertaking an extended flu vaccination programme this winter to include patients over the age of 50.
This is a free flu jab programme aimed at protecting a larger proportion of the population from flu when there is the risk from COVID19. COVID means getting a flu jab is more important than ever this year.
The practice is now booking patients in for their flu jab for the 50-64 year age group with text invitations and by phone to ensure we are booking into clinics alongside vaccine deliveries. We are working efficiently to make sure everyone gets vaccinated as soon as possible. Look out for your invite in the next week or so.
Medical Records
Lancashire and South Cumbria has been chosen by NHS England to be a national pilot for the digitisation of Medical Records. Scanning these papers based records and making them digital will enable better utilisation of space, creating more clinical space, staff areas, multi team space and video hubs, removing the need for some practices to build extensions. In addition it will also make your record more easily and speedily accessible to clinical staff with your practice.
Your complete GP medical record will be digital and stored in a secure cloud based clinical system (only accessible by your GP practice) with the paper based records being securely destroyed following secure destruction of confidential material. Your GP will still be able to access your records easily within the system. The scanning and destruction of the paper records will follow strict data protection guidelines adhered by the NHS. As with paper based records, digital records are stored for the duration specified in the records management code of practice – see link below. For GP patient records, this states that they may be destroyed 10 years after the patient’s death if they are no longer needed.
If you wish to discuss this scheme, please inform the Practice with by letter or via e-mail at [email protected]
School Letters for Attendance
Please note that it is not a GPs responsibility to issue school letters of absence for your children. Government guidance is that school attendance is mandatory unless your child is self-isolating, has symptoms of COVID-19 or is close to someone who has COVID-19.’
‘The Government has stated that from September school attendance will be mandatory once again. This decision has been taken because the current level of risk of infection is low and therefore “perceived risk of COVID to child or parent” will not be considered adequate grounds for a child to not attend school’https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-and-colleges-to-reopen-in-full-in-september
Please note that parents should still make arrangements to contact their GP in the normal way if their child is ill.
Flu Clinics 2020
In order to operate flu vaccination clinics this year we have had to factor in social distancing in our plans, so things are going to be a little different.
Who should get the flu vaccine?
This year the flu vaccine is being offered on the NHS to:
– adults aged 65 and over (including anyone who will be 65 by the 31st March 2021)
– people with certain medical conditions (including children in at-risk groups from 6 months of age)
– pregnant women
– carers – including people living with someone who’s at high risk of coronavirus (on the NHS shielded patient list)
– children aged 2 and 3 on 31st August 2020
– children in primary school (via school ONLY)
– children in year 7 (via school ONLY)
– frontline health or social care workers
If you are unsure whether you are eligible for a free flu jab, please contact the surgery and we will be able to advise you.
All eligible patients should receive an invite either by text, phone or a letter.
Housebound/Care Home Patients
Our close relationship with the Central West Community team means that once again this year they will providing our housebound patients and care home patients with their flu vaccinations. We expect these visits to begin in September/October.
Home visits are very limited and so are strictly reserved only for those who physically couldn’t get into a car or public transport to attend an appointment even with help from a friend, family or a taxi.
I’m aged 50-64 am I also now eligible?
Later in the year the flu vaccine is expected to be available to people aged 50-64 regardless of any pre-existing medical condition.
More information will be available to the 50-64 ‘newly eligible’ patients later in the autumn and until then, appointments are only being opened up to be booked by those patients who were already eligible. We have to prioritise vaccine stock for the most vulnerable patients first.
If you’re aged 50 to 64 but also in another at-risk group, you should book for your flu vaccine and not wait.
If you’re aged 50 to 64 and were not already in an at risk group, please ensure the practice has a correct mobile number for you, as details will be sent by text about the availability of additional vaccines later in the season.
What’s changed from previous years?
We are running separate clinics for patients 65+, 64 and under and for children.
All patients attending for their vaccination will have to be ‘ready’ before entering the surgery. This means wearing a face covering, removing jackets and rolling sleeves up. The nurses have to clean down the room after every patient, so this will help to keep our appointments as close to time as possible. We also ask that you only arrive around 5 minutes prior to your appointment time to minimise queuing.
When are the flu appointments available to be booked into?
We’ve recently started inviting those patients who are eligible for a flu vaccine so appointments are available to book now.
Can I have my flu vaccine when I am coming to the surgery for another medical reason?
Yes, but only if you have an appointment with a GP, Nurse, Nurse Practitioner or PCA, you are eligible and only if time and stock allows on the day.
This will only apply to appointments after the following dates: – From 07th September onwards for the over 65s – From the beginning of October onwards for the under 65s. – From mid November (we believe) for the newly eligible 50-64 year olds
This does not include sharing personally identifiable information.