The Practice Nurses are highly trained at taking cervical smears tests and achieve a very high level of adequate samples. An invitation letter will be sent to you routinely when your cervical smear is due.

You will be sent appointments for these assessments throughout their pre-school years. We strongly recommend that you protect your child by immunisation. They can be protected against the serious diseases of tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, mumps, German measles and meningitis. Your doctor or health visitor will be pleased to discuss any concerns you may have.

Wansbeck Primary Care Network have formed a partnership with Cygnus Support to provide a Social Prescribing service for our patients. This is delivered by our Team of 4 Community Link Workers who work across the PCN. They offer advice, signposting and additional support to our patients who have non-medical issues that may be impacting upon their wellbeing. These issues could include money worries, family troubles, employment issues, carer stress, problems managing a long-term illness or disability, bereavement, and loneliness. Or the patient may just wish to engage in a new hobby, be more active or take up volunteering. 

The doctors and nurses liaise with Social Services as necessary.

A comprehensive family service is provided, including hormonal contraception (e.g. ‘the pill’), coil fitting, hormone implants. Contraceptive pill checks are provided by our Practice Nurses and our Nurse Practitione

Also, patients with heart, lung or kidney disease, diabetics and residents of nursing or residential homes. Please contact the reception staff in October for details on how to get your ‘flu jab’.

To do this we need to ensure that we have an organised process or reviewing our patients on at least an annual basis.

This new review process provides a better way of reviewing patient’s needs, especially for patients who may have more than one Long Term Condition.

What is a Long Term Condition?

A Long term condition includes illnesses such as:

• Respiratory disease
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Diabetes
• Kidney disease
• High blood pressure
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Epilepsy
• Mental health problems

Other long term health issues that affect the health or lifestyle of a patient.

These conditions require an annual review to ensure that the condition is being managed appropriately, identify any problems or concerns and ensure patients are confident to deal with their condition between reviews.

How Does the Process Work?

Patients with long term conditions will be invited for their annual review within the month of their birthday. Some patients have more than one long term condition. If this is the case, all relevant conditions will be reviewed within the one annual review process. This ensures that you are only attending the surgery when you need to and that we are not asking you to attend the surgery unnecessarily. You will receive a letter which explains what to do next.

For some conditions, it may be necessary to have more than one appointment, for example, a blood test appointment with the health care assistant (to ensure results are available for the review) and then a review with the practice nurse or nurse practitioner. In some case, it may also be necessary to have an appointment with the GP, but most reviews will take place with our specialised Nursing team who have knowledge and experience of managing long term condition patients.

Some conditions may require an interim review e.g. at six months this will be discussed at the annual review where it is felt to be appropriate.

Antenatal care is usually shared between your doctor, the community midwife and the maternity hospital. If you think you may be pregnant book an appointment with your doctor who can organise your antenatal care.

These clinics are run to help save patients long waits for hospital appointments. All conditions must be seen by the doctor first to assess suitability for surgery.

They offer a health check aimed at reducing the risk of common diseases, especially heart diseases. Everybody is welcome to attend one of these clinics. Please remember to bring a urine sample with you (bottles available from the reception desk) so that your urine can be tested.