Aldermoor Surgery

If your employer is asking for a note from your GP surgery. The government’s rules around issuing a sick note are that medical professionals can only issue one when an individual has had more than seven continuous calendar days off sick due to an illness (including weekends).

For any period of illness less than seven days, you are able to complete a self-certification certificate and provide this to your employer. In the unlikely event that your employer does not accept a self-certification, your doctor may be able to issue a private sick note for which there will be a charge and quite possibly a long delay.

In light of the current Coronavirus situation, it is inevitable that a number of employees may be required to quarantine themselves at home, for example due to the nature of recent travel, even in the absence of any symptoms of an illness. In these cases, your GP will NOT be able to issue a sick note as the time off work is not due to an illness, and isn’t affecting your ability to work, but rather is a precaution to avoid transmission of any illness that is yet to produce symptoms.

We therefore expect your employer to be sympathetic if you are required to self-isolate for 14 days and to understand that the reason for this is to protect the welfare of your work colleagues and the wider community. We understand that you may also be able to call NHS 111 to request an email confirmation of the suspected Coronavirus diagnosis, to show to your employer if needed.

Whilst we appreciate this may cause some difficulties between you and your employer, equally GPs have a responsibility to prioritise the assessment and management of the healthcare needs of patients who are actually unwell, rather than spending time dealing with requests for sick notes, particularly when they aren’t in a position to issue one.  See link below

https://111.nhs.uk/isolation-note/

From Monday 30th March all GP surgeries in Southampton will be working in conjunction with each other and working to the same plan.

From Monday 30TH March Aldermoor doors will remain shut and we will not be dealing with any patients on a face to face basis. All patients who need to be physically seen and examined will be seen in a designated authorised site call a COLD SITE.  The cold site for our area is Lordshill Surgery. Please do not contact Lordshill directly you can only be referred there by a GP from Aldermoor Surgery

This does not mean that we are not here for our patients we will continue provide medical services for our patients medical health, but we need to deliver these services in a different way whilst the country is in  Lock Down.

We will however NOT be dealing with routine  medical problems during this time, for example annual reviews, Cervical smears, non urgent follow-ups etc.

All non-urgent reviews will be done either on the telephone, questionnaire or video link if you have the technology to support this

If you feel that you need to speak to us for a non-life threatening medical condition/emergency or if you have a medical query please contact the surgery in the normal way and you will be put on our daily triage list. A clinician will call you back and assess your problem or query. If the clinician feels that you need to be seen and examined this will be arranged for you.  You will be given an appointment to be seen by one of our GP’s at Lordshill Surgery – who are the designated COLD SITE.

Our nursing team will also hold some sessions at Lordshill Surgery for dressings, injections and urgent blood tests. We are still in the planning stages of arranging clinics for nurses, so I ask that you bear with us and call the surgery on Monday 30th March after 2:00 PM to request a urgent appointment with our  nursing team.

REQUESTING PRESCRIPTIONS

With regard to prescriptions you will be able to request them by;-

Putting the paper slip in the letter box adjacent the front door, by telephone, by email and by e-consult request You will however NOT BE ABLE TO COLLECT YOUR PRESCRIPTION FROM THE SURGERY. Therefore you will need to nominate the pharmacy where you would like to collect your medication from. Please write this on the request slip or your email request.

REQUEST FOR SICK NOTES/FIT NOTES

Request for sick/fit notes can be done via email, e-consult via the practice website. As with prescriptions you will not be able to collect them from the practice, they can be emailed back to you or posted

AM I ON THE VULNERABLE LIST

We have had many questions relating to this question, unfortunately we do not have the capacity to deal with these queries and request that you go to the government website for this information, see below.

The government are in the process of writing  to all patients who match this criteria but in the meantime seek advice on their website

CONTACT DETAILS

Practice email:- soccg.aldermoorsurgery@nhs.net

Practice website:-aldermoor.nhs.uk

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults

111 ONLINE – Coronavirus  https://111.nhs.uk/covid-19

18/3/2018

Dear Patients

Due to concerns of Coronavirus and under guidance of Public Health England, to reduce the spread of the virus we are reducing our face to face consultation. This means that we will not be allowing pre-bookable appointments for non-urgent routine appointments.

We will try and address any of your health concerns via a telephone consultation or video consultation if you have the technology to support this.

You can also contact the surgery if you are registered for online services.  We would highly recommend that if you take regular repeat medication you register for this online service to avoid coming to the surgery.  Contact the surgery if you would like to do this.

You can also do and E-Consultations via the surgery website www.aldermoor.nhs.uk

Please be assured that we are still offering medical services to our patients, we just have to deliver these services in a different way due to the current pandemic, however if your condition requires that you need to be seen by a GP face to face we will still do this once you have been assessed on the telephone or by one of the online services and once we are confident that you do not have any COVID-19 or respiratory symptoms.

We thank you for your patience and co-operation during this very difficult time.

Stay safe and stay well

The Partners of Aldermoor Surgery

If you think you have coronavirus DO NOT COME TO THE SURGERY

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