Message from Dispensary The Beacon Health Group Newsletter Addition 6 Message from Dispensary A reminder to all patients Medication Reviews All patients must have a medication review. This is to meet with a Doctor or Nurse and discuss your medication so it can be updated or changed where necessary for the continuation of your care. Review dates can be found on all repeat slips. Prescription Phone Line Please be aware of our new opening times for our prescription clerks to take queries over the phone. You can call our Prescription Clerks between 11:00am – 15:00pm daily. For your information this is option 3 on our telephone system. Prescriptions Prescriptions will take 48 hours to complete, this does not take into account the weekends or bank holidays. Collection times can be found on the prescription boxes at both surgeries.

Message from Reception Appointments Our appointment system allows patients to access a GP up to four weeks in advance or with our Nurse Team up to eight weeks in advance. Patients needing to be seen urgently on the day will be triaged by the Duty Doctor.  We would like to remind patients of the following times lines: Blood test results take 7 days from the date of your test. X-ray results take 10-14 days Private referral letters to be written take at least 48hrs Please note that we are not a walk in clinic, for emergencies. THE BEACON HEALTH GROUP - ONLINE APPOINTMENT BOOKING To use this facility the patient must first obtain a user name and password from the surgery in order to log in.  This must be done in person at the surgery and will only be provided by the receptionist upon production of photo ID by the patient - such as passport, photo driving licence or student card.  (Once you have received your password please allow 24 hours before you can access the system) A significant amount of appointments are now available to book via this system which are not able to be booked by a receptionist, some of these appointments are for the next day or the within the week, with a choice of GP, and can only be accessed online. There is also a wide range of phlebotomy appointments to pre-book. We are developing this online booking system further and are constantly monitoring the online appointments to ensure that they meet patient demand.   Please ensure that you select an appointment at your preferred site before booking.  Touch Screen We apologies that our touchscreen at Mountbatten House is not working at the moment, we are in the process of ordering a new one and we thank you for your patience.

Comments & Suggestions DNA’S The Beacon Health Group have sadly once again had an alarming number of DNA’s reported for the month of June 2017. A total of 279 patients did not attend their appointments in June; 164 at Danbury Medical Centre (17.5 hours) and 115 at Mountbatten House Surgery (9.5 hours). This averages approx. 9.3 appointments a day. PLEASE remember to cancel an appointment if it is no longer needed to allow other patients the opportunity of filling the appointment. As a reminder, to cancel an appointment please call the surgery and press option 2 to leave your name, date of birth, date and time of appointment. Please DO NOT email reception as although this mailbox is checked daily it is not checked continuously throughout the day. Comments & Suggestions Due to an already stretched budget, we had to cancel our music licence at Mountbatten House Surgery, we are looking into alternative means which are still under review. We do not like to talk about the ‘rain’ while the sun is out, however, we have had suggestions for an umbrella stand by the front doors which we will look into purchasing. We would like to thank the patient who gave such wonderful compliments of our staff. It is always a pleasure to receive such positive feedback. Thank you! We are aware that during the month of June our patient Touch screen at Danbury for self arrival has not been working. This has caused long delays with reception and we apologise for this. We have now sourced a temporary one. At Danbury we now have a gardener who will maintain the grounds at Danbury Medical Centre on a bi-weekly basis.

Beaulieu Park Development PPG Update You are invited to join our next Patient Participant Group meeting at Danbury Medical Centre on the 1st August 2017 at 18:30pm. Zebra Crossing We are delighted to let our local Danbury residents know that the council are laying a Zebra Crossing outside our Danbury surgery. Works will commence on the 21st July and last approximately 1 week. Beaulieu Park Development As you may already be aware, the development at Beaulieu Park includes a new health facility to provide primary care services to local residents.  Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group along with NHS England are currently considering a number of options which include the opportunity for local practices to provide primary healthcare services from this new health facility.   The Beacon Health Group has produced a business case to relocate our existing Mountbatten House surgery into the new purpose built premises.  This would seem a sensible solution to eradicate the continuous problems we face working at our current site, highlighted by all stakeholders.   As the nearest practice to the new surgery it would cause the least disruption to patients and would certainly benefit our every increasing list size.   Our Patient Participation Group fully supports this relocation and sees it as a positive move forward for our Springfield patients.    Please visit our website - http://www.thebeaconhealthgroup.co.uk/ where we are asking for patient feedback to support our application. Please visit our site and fill out the survey. Your participation is very much appreciated.