Practice Updates
Face Mask Update - as advised by NHS England
Patients:
Patients are no longer required to wear a face mask in health care settings, EXCEPT patients with respiratory symptoms/coughs/potential covid symptoms who if attending the practice will still need to wear a face mask or covering unless medically exempt.
Patients are welcome to continue wearing a face mask if it is your preference.
Wallingbrook Team:
Our clinical team will continue to wear a facemask when seeing patients, staff in non-clinical areas are no longer required to wear a mask, unless this is their personal preference.
COVID Symptoms:
If you have any COVID symptoms, DO NOT attend the surgery, please visit https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/ or contact the surgery.
Thank you 10/06/2022
General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR)
Patient data from general practice has significantly contributed to the improvement of health and care services and treatments for many years. NHS Digital is making improvements to how data is collected from general practice, with a new framework for data extraction called the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) collection.
A pause to the collection for GPDPR was announced on 8 June to enable more time for NHS Digital to strengthen the plan with GPs, patients, health charities and others. In a letter to all GPs this week, Minister for Primary Care and Health Promotion, Jo Churchill set out a new process for commencing data collection, moving away from a previously fixed date of 1 September.
More information is available in the NHS Digital press notice.
How to access your COVID-19 vaccination status
Through the NHS App
You can access your COVID-19 vaccination status through the free NHS App from 17 May. You can access the app through mobile devices such as a smartphone or tablet. Proof of your COVID-19 vaccination status will be shown within the NHS App. We recommend that you register with the app before booking international travel.
It can be downloaded from https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/nhs-app/id1388411277 for iPhone or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nhs.online.nhsonline for android.
By calling 119
If you do not have access to a smartphone and know that the country you are travelling to requires COVID-19 vaccination status, you can call the NHS helpline on 119 (from 17 May) and ask for a letter to be posted to you. This must be at least 5 working days after you’ve completed your course of the vaccine. We expect the letter to take up to 5 working days to reach you.
The letter will be sent automatically to the address registered with your GP. The 119 call handler you speak to will not be able to see your address to check this with you. If you’ve recently moved house, make sure you’ve given your new address to your GP practice before calling 119.
Do not contact your GP surgery about your COVID-19 vaccination status. GPs cannot provide letters showing your COVID-19 vaccination status.
For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/demonstrating-your-covid-19-vaccination-status-when-travelling-abroad?fbclid=IwAR1gvFQfXHwQ6w4MOk7RnKP07YPjWRIwr8TjQ0yuc3RxcGJC-vU-CiHHf74
The National NHS Covid Vaccination Booking System
The national NHS booking system may send you a letter offering you to have your Covid Vaccination at one of the large vaccinations centres; Westward Ho, Greendale at Exeter.
If you have received a letter, please book an appointment through the NHS website or by calling 119. New appointments are regularly added to the system, so please keep checking back with the site if you need to.
13/04/21
The national NHS booking system is now inviting people aged 45 and over to book their vaccination.
Click on the link below for the National NHS Covid Vaccination Booking System:
At-risk groups to receive free winter supply of vitamin D
At-risk groups to receive free winter supply of vitamin D
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/at-risk-groups-to-receive-free-winter-supply-of-vitamin-d
Individuals on the clinically extremely vulnerable list will receive a letter from the Department of Health & Social Care inviting them to opt in for a supply to be delivered directly to their homes.
Deliveries will be free of charge, starting in January, and will provide 4 months’ worth of supplements to last people through the winter months.
The supplements will support general health, in particular bone and muscle health. This is particularly important this year as these individuals are more likely to have been indoors for extended periods due to measures introduced to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The supplies are not organised through your GP Surgery.
Germ Defence
We are letting you know about a very useful website called Germ Defence which was created by a team of doctors and scientists to give you advice that has been proven to reduce the spread of viruses in the home. It can help you plan how to protect yourself and members of your family from infection by COVID-19 and ‘flu.
It’s easy to use and only takes 10 minutes – just click on this link:
www.germdefence.org/index.html?src=L83025
(If this link does not open when you click on it, please copy and paste it into your web browser.)
Please pass details of the Germ Defence website to your friends and family.
There’s a button at the bottom of the Germ Defence website for sharing by social media.
If you’d like to know more:
- Over 20,000 people previously took part in research about Germ Defence
- People who followed the advice in Germ Defence had fewer and less severe illnesses – and so did the people they lived wi
- Results of the study were published in The Lancet medical journal
- Germ Defence has been updated with COVID-19 advice to help prevent a wave of COVID-19 and ‘flu this Autumn/Winter
Information about how the Germ Defence website is being evaluated is available here