The practice has stored the old Lloyd George (paper) records off site for a number of years to free up space at the practice. We use an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and all data is added to this record. There are occasions when we need to review your older paper records, for private insurance reports or private medicals. Usually we would be able to request these within 2 weeks however due to problems with the previous storage company and rising costs, NHS England who fund this service, has changed our supplier. Whilst the transfer of notes is takiing place we are unable to access them. We were notified that this process has now started and it is likely to take 2-3 months before we will be able to request any paper records. We apologise for any inconvience this causes but ti si out of our control.

In some instances when we explain this to the companies involved they may be satisifeid with the EMR, especially as notes are now summarised when we receive them.

We are still holding flu and covid vaccination clinics through October. You can opt to have eith one or both, please let reception know when you are booking which vaccines you require. We have clinics on Saturdays 7th and 14th October plus we will be offering clinics during the week. 

• 1st October             World Vegetarian Day,   https://worldvegetarianday.navs-online.org/ 

• 1st-7th October      Anaphylaxis Awareness Week,  www.anaphylaxis.org.uk 

• 3rd-7th October     Back Care week  https://backcare.org.uk/events/2021-back-care-awareness-week/ 

• 1st-31st October    Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Early intervention via screening can make a huge difference,  www.breastcancernow.org

• 1st-31st October   Lupus Awareness Month. An immune system illness mainly affecting females and any part of the body,    www.lupusuk.org1st   

• 1st-31st October     STOPTOBER - quit smoking this month https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/ 

• 1st-31st October     National Cholesterol Month https://www.heartuk.org.uk/ 
• 1st-31st October     Speak Up Month - National Guardian Freedom to Speak Up https://nationalguardian.org.uk/ 

• 10th October    World Mental Health Day. For decades this has been almost a taboo subject, with millions too afraid to acknowledge their suffering,   www.mentalhealth.org.uk

•  

  12th-20th October  Bone and Joint week https://www.iosteopathy.org/help-raise-awareness-of-msk-during-bone-and-joint-week/ 

• 15th-21st October   Infection Prevention Week  https://infectionpreventionandyou.org/iipw/ 
• 18th October           World Menopause Day  https://www.imsociety.org/education/world-menopause-day/ 

Appointment data is published for all GP practices in England. The data has now been published for practices in England for April. The full statistics can be viewed by following the link below:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/appointments-in-general-practice/april-2023 

In summary The Garden City Practice delivered 4647 appointments in April 2023, an average of 392.1 appointments per 1000 registered paitents:

85.1% were face-to-face 

46.8% were same day appointments

51.3% were with a GP

2.4% Did not attend equal to 110 "lost" appointments

The practice is committed to increasing access to GP, Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Practice Nurse appointments in 2023, as well as utilising the Additional Roles such as Clinical Pharmacists, Physiotherapists, Social Prescribers and Mental Health Practitioners through the WGC Primary Care Network (PCN).

We would appreciate if patients provide brief information to Reception about the reason for your appointment when you contact the practice in order that you can be booked with the appropriate healthcare professional; the GP isn't always the best person to help.

HertsHelp: https://www.hertshelp.net/HertsHelp.aspx

Advice for childhood illnesses https://hertsvalleysccg.nhs.uk/application/files/1716/0941/0098/Help_your_Child_Stay_Well_This_Winter_FINAL.pdf 

We have a limited resources and limited number of appointments every day, please do not be rude to or shout at our receptionists; the practice will not tolerate offensive behavour or language and we will take steps to remove patients from our list if necessary.

Thank you very much for helping us all manage under these very difficult circumstances.

The Government's Household Support Fund is available to assist Hertfordshire residents with things such as the cost of food and energy, find out more at: www.hertfordshire.go.uk/HSF 

If you are struggling with current price rises and need help to buy food or to heat your home you can contact HertsHelp who are a countywide service who offer advice and practical support to people across Hertfordshire. They may be able to help with essentials like the cost of food and energy bills. They can also help if you are worried about finances and with emotional support and wellbeing.

If you need help, regardless of whether you qualify for benefits, call 0300 123 4044, email info@hertshelp.net or visit www.hertshelp.net

Your district or borough council may also contact you to offer support with the cost of energy directly.

Patient data has been collected from practices for a number of years using the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES), the General Pracrice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) is replacing GPES and will help to support the planning and commissioning of health and care services, the development of health and care policy, public health monitoring and interventions and enable different areas of research.

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research 

More information about how NHS Digital is processing GP data can be found in NHS Digital's GPDPR Transparency Notice:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research/transparency-notice 

Opting out

There are two different opt-outs:

Type 1 Opt-out - prevent sharing of your practice data with NHS Digital; these were introduced in 2013. NHS Digital will not collect data for patients who are already have a Type 1 opt-out recorded. If you wish to regsiter a Type 1 Opt-out please complete the form available here

Data sharing with NHS digital has now been postponed a new start date has not been set; NHS Digital will need to be meet a varierty of stringent tests before going live. They are introducing three changes to the opt-out system which mean that patients will be able to change their opt-out status at any time:

1.Patients do not need to register a Type 1 opt-out by 1 September to ensure their GP data will not be uploaded

2.NHS Digital will create the technical means to allow GP data that has previously been uploaded to the system via the GPDPR collection to be deleted when someone registers a Type 1  opt-out   

3.The plan to retire Type 1 opt-outs will be deferred for at  least 12 months while the new arrangements are introdcued and will not be implemented without consultation with the RCGP, the BMA and the National Data Guardian

The Practice will continue process your opt-out forms when received; unfortuantley we will not be able to confirm processing of individual forms.

National Data Opt-out - opting out of NHS Digital sharing your data unless there is a legal exemption to do so. You can find out more and register a National Data Opt-out or change your choice on https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/  or call 0300 303 5678 if you do not have access to the internet.

You must do the National Opt-out through NHS Digtal, this cannot be done at the practice.

Your individual care will not be affected if you opt-out using Type 1 or National Data Opt-out.