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March 2012 - Patient Experience Survey Results 2011/2012
December 2011- Partnership Changes After over 25 years at Honiton surgery, Dr. Paul Barber and Dr. Philip Courtney will both be retiring at the end of this year. The doctors completed their post graduate training at Honiton Surgery working with Drs. Essame and Penwarden before spending some time working abroad. They then returned to Honiton and became partners within one year of each other. Dr Barber is now looking forward to some exciting world wide travel plans whilst Dr. Courtney will be pursuing other interests in medicine as well as returning to us as a locum from time to time. Its been a year of change for Honiton as Dr. Clare Seamark retired at the end of 2010 although she has still been a familiar face at the practice as she continues her work as a specialist in family planning and working on various research projects . The remaining partners are now pleased to announce the appointment of two new partners, whom many of you may have already met. Dr Rachel MacLachlan has returned from maternity leave after the birth of her second son and will be taking over the care of Dr. Barber's patients. Meanwhile Dr. Charles Moody ,who is returning to the west country having spent his childhood locally , will take over the care of Dr. Clare Seamark's and Dr. Philip Courtney's patients. 26 July 2011- Patient Representative Group Would you like to have a say about the services provided at Honiton Surgery? The Surgery Patient Participation Group would like to hear your views. We are trying to ensure the views of a good cross section of our patients are represented. By providing your email details we can add them to a contact list that will mean we can contact you by email every now and again to ask you a question or two. If you are interested, please ask for a form at reception, and we will add your email address to the contact list.
26 July 2011- Self Check Blood Pressure Machine Thanks to the generosity of Honiton Hospital League of Friends we now have a self check blood pressure machine available every weekday afternoon in room 4. Ladies aged between 18 and 30 who are on the oral contraceptive pill, are non smokers, have a BMI of less than 30 and previous blood pressure of 140/90 or less may be eligible to self check their own blood pressure, and thus avoid a doctors appointment when needing a further supply of their pill. This is a “walk in” service so no appointment is necessary. The receptionist will be able to check whether you are eligible to use this more flexible service. You will need to see a GP every five years. If you need to wear glasses for reading, it would be advisable to bring them with you as there are instructions to read. 5 January 2011 - Implanon Update for Women You may have heard stories of women becoming pregnant despite having an Implanon in place. Many of these women had Implanon incorrectly fitted. If your implant was fitted by a trained doctor or nurse they should have checked the position and got you to feel the implant when it was fitted. You should also have been offered a follow up check. If you are concerned that you cannot feel the implant please make an appointment. You should be able to feel the implant easily under the skin DO NOT keep touching the implant or fiddle with it as this may affect its performance. In some cases women became pregnant at the time of fitting and this is probably not due to a failure of the implant. The implant did not have time to work. A very few women definitely less than 1% or probably as few as only one woman in 1000 have a genuine failure of the implant. Implanon is still extremely effective contraception. Other side effects with the implant are not usually serious in medical terms but can be annoying and upsetting such as irregular periods (quite a common side effect) or much less often changes in mood. The chances of having any serious scarring with the insertion or removal are also very small if fitted by a trained professional. We have had no serious problems with scarring in Honiton. What you should do If you are happy your implant is in place all should be fine- you need do nothing. If at any time you experience different symptoms or start to think you might be pregnant get it checked out by doing a home pregnancy test or seeing a nurse or doctor at the surgery. Most women already attend if they have side effects and we will continue to offer advice and help for these. We have had no serious problems with scarring in Honiton. MOST IMPORTANT There is no concern about the overall safety of Implanon to you. Dr Clare Seamark MD FRCGP FFSRH Honiton Surgery Improvements to our appointments system In an attempt to make it easier for you to make appointments we extended our working hours on 1st July 2008. Early morning appointments are available on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:30 - 8:00am and there are additional surgeries running on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 6:30-8:00pm. In addition we have restructured our appointments and aim to be able to offer appoinmtments within 48 hours (2 working days). We encourage patients to see their usual doctor for ongoing problems – it may not be possible to offer an appointment with your own doctor within this timescale. Please be prepared to plan ahead when an appointment with a specific doctor is required. We continue to be available everyday for telephone advice; patients requesting same day appointments will be generally called back by the duty doctor. We have found that a lot of problems can be sorted out over the 'phone. Dr Clare Seamark has retired as a partner at the surgery but will be available for family planning and women's health treatment.
Her former patients will be seen by Drs Ingram, Button and Waterfall. |
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