Patient Newsletter March 2024
🕰️ Help us to keep waiting times short and cancel unwanted appointments
In February, 173 patients failed to cancel their unwanted appointment. This meant that 42 hours of appointments were wasted! These appointments could have gone to patients who were waiting for one.
To cancel an appointment:
- Use your NHS account (through the NHS website or NHS App).
- Reply CANCEL to your appointment reminder text message.
Please tell us as soon as possible if you no longer need your appointment so we can offer your appointment to someone else and help reduce waiting times. We are now removing patients who regularly miss booked appointments from our practice list as this is unfair to other patients and our team. Read more.
👶🏽 When to keep little ones off school
When your child is poorly it isn’t always easy to know whether you should keep them off school or nursery and when/if you should seek medical advice.
Trust your instincts, you know your child better than anyone else. If your child does not seem to be seriously ill, you can usually look after them at home and they should feel better in a few days. If they’re uncomfortable, you can give them children’s paracetamol or children’s ibuprofen. Check the leaflet to make sure the medicine is suitable for your child and to see how much to give them.
The South West London Healthier Together website has some handy information about when to keep your child at home and what illnesses they can still attend school or nursery with. And remember, your local pharmacist can advise how to ease your child’s symptoms and if they should see a GP.
🧘♀️ Taking care of your ovaries
March is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. About 7,400 women are diagnosed with cancer of the ovary (ovarian cancer) each year in the UK. Ovarian cancer affects the ovaries and it mostly affects women over the age of 50. Early diagnosis of ovarian cancer can make it more treatable.
Symptoms include:
- A swollen tummy or feeling bloated
- Pain or tenderness in your tummy or the area between the hips (pelvis)
- No appetite or feeling full quickly after eating
- An urgent need to pee or needing to pee more often
Many of these symptoms are not cancer but for peace of mind, we urge you to make an appointment if you have any of these symptoms frequently each month so we can get you checked out properly.
🏥 Suspect sinusitis? Think Pharmacy First!
Did you know that you can now get advice and treatment for sinusitis directly from pharmacists, without an appointment, and without having to contact us first?
The new Pharmacy First scheme means that your local pharmacist can now:
➡️ Provide advice and treatment if you suspect you have sinusitis.
➡️ Access and update your health records (with your permission).
➡️ Prescribe over-the-counter treatments and prescription-only medicines.
Simply pop along to your local pharmacy for advice and a consultation – no appointment needed! Find out more about Pharmacy First here.
💩 Could your next poo save your life?
March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month so the perfect time to make yourself familiar with the symptoms of colon cancer.
You should make an appointment with your GP if:
- There is blood in your poo (stools)
- You are bleeding from the back passage
- There is a change in your normal bowel habit.
There are plenty of times when these symptoms are not cancer but for peace of mind, we urge you to make an appointment. You will not be wasting anyone’s time and it could just save your life!
For more information and guidance about colon cancer please visit Macmillan Cancer Support.
💬 Could social prescribing help you?
Social prescribing helps people to focus on their social, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Kelly is our resident social prescriber here at Tudor Lodge and works with patients to focus on what matters to them, helping to connect them with local groups and services that can provide practical and emotional support.
Kelly knows all about the best local physical activities and social groups, volunteering opportunities, and where to turn for debt and housing advice. Hundreds of patients at Tudor Lodge have already benefitted from social prescriptions. The best way to book an appointment with Kelly is to use our online form.
💊 Easter repeat prescription reminder
Don’t run out of your medicines over Easter. Use your NHS App to get your repeat prescriptions to us by Friday 22nd March so we have enough time to get them approved and to your pharmacy in time.
The NHS App takes the hassle out of ordering repeat prescriptions. It’s easy to use and will save you a phone call to the surgery. Help and support is available here if you’re just getting started with the app or need help.
