The surgery will be welcoming new trainee GPs to the practice. This allows additional appointments to be available for patients to book.
Patients have expressed they are happy with our trainee GPs.
Reception staff will offer available appointments with the most appropriate clinicians when patients call to book.

The surgery has 3 new pharmacists to carry out all medication related queries, face to face and telephone appointments are available to book with them. 

We are sad to say goodbye to our practice nurse Lizzie and practice pharmacist Shaliee.

Increased face to face appointments: NM

Patients will now start to notice we have increased our face to face consultations.

PPG member RA explained she is happy with the changes to increase face to face consultations; helps with patient communication and better understanding and raport between the clinician and patient.

CT appreciates the increased face to face appointments but also wants to point out that telephone appointments are useful to offer for a quick follow up with the clinicians and if the possibility of video calls can be looked into. 

NM explained the nature of the booking will be appropriately booked by reception staff with the relevant clinician and will offer suitable appointment types as per query.

NK explained she completely agrees with CT and RA, however, not all patients may know to how utilise the appointment type accordingly. There may be cases where patients need to be seen face to face in order for the clinician to carry out the consultation and this may create duplication of work and shortage of appointments if they are booked a call and then need to attend a face to face appointment. NK would like to inform members that most doctors have 18 appointments every morning 4 of which will be telephone slots for the relevant queries that can be discussed over the phone ie. test results.  

As a result, every morning at 7:45am NM checks over all the booked appointments for the day and allocates them to the most appropriate clinician and offer face to face where required.

We are inviting patients in for their annual health checks which includes, diabetic checks, physical health check, blood pressure checks etc, therefore we have increased appointment availability with the healthcare assistants. 

PPG members previously mentioned they had concerns we did not offer enough HCA appointments and the practice has now worked towards increasing the capacity. 

Lola works with the Paddington Development Trust as a community coordinator for the local climate champions in Westbourne, Queens Park and Harrow Road areas.

Lola is a connector between different environmental organisations in the area and brings them together.
She works with the local climate champions, which is a built up group of local people trained and supported to help make a difference to the environment and greenery i.e reducing waste by recycling. Lola is aiming to put together 5 different projects in each area totalling 15 projects. Further details of projects and contact details will be available on the PPG section of the GUHC website.

NK informed members if patients are struggling getting digital access to NHS services such as the NHS app, there is a specific helpline being put together locally to support patients accessing their health records. Further details will be available upon request. 

NM reminded members the surgery previously offered a pop up stall to help patients with any NHS app issues they had and this had proven successful as many patients were able to resolve issues and navigate the NHS app with a clearer understanding.

Photos from Tamara’s event on 31/05/2024: NM

NM informed members that Dr Joffee has organised many community based events with the support of Dr Turner, Dr Jospeh and Dr Katz. There have been several activity based workshops during the school half terms for families and children at the stowe centre. 

The recent event took place on 31st May 2024 at the stowe centre which offered childrens craft workshops, cooking clubs, health promotion such as childhood immunisation discussions.

Nk detailed that the first events took place during the February, April and May half terms, Dr joseph and Dr Turner have been actively involved. 
Most of the items needed to help run the cooking events had been donated ie. kitchen ware, ingredients and recipes, for mothers to cook for their children and all participants had a meal together.  

A number of different clinicians were also available to help promote services: Paediatricians at St Marys Hospital were present, dentists, liver scan stall, nurses, healthcare assistants. 

Dr Turner helped with making children’s puppets, story reading, games and educating them on how to use healthcare services, and who to contact for specific health needs ie. if you have a toothache who to contact, if you have a fever who to contact, runny nose where to go. 

Dr Joffee was also able to carry out some consultations with patients such as writing letters, sick notes as well as organising foods.

The event was successful as over 100 local patients and residents turned up.

Photos of events will be available on the PPG section of the GUHC website.

RA also wanted to inform members she is part of a community womans group at the WECH centre every Tuesdays, where NHS clinicians give educational seminars, eye care advise, vaccinations, and talking therapies from the mental health team. 

All upcoming events to be shared between RA and NM in order to circulate the upcoming events to all local residents and patients via PPG website and flyers. 

As everyone is aware there has been a recent measles outbreak in local schools and the NHS have informed all practices and schools in the area of how to try to keep cases controlled by following guidelines which are available on their websites and posters. 

For any concerns or advise our practice nurses are happy to carry out telephone consultations which can be booked by calling reception. 

Our practise nurses are currently working through all children’s records to check everyone is up to date with their vaccinations and will contact and encourage those that need to come in for boosters either to attend Grand Union Health Centre or St Charles Vaccination Hub. 

Local schools are also offering parents webinars to advise them further, dates for webinars are different per schools.

North West London integrated centres have been asked to carry out a Woman’s health survey to give feedback on local woman’s health and wellbeing services offered.
This is only for NHS research purposes to help improve quality services. 

If any female members would like to take part in the survey, please inform NM and a survey will be emailed for completion. 

Next PPG meeting in 3 months, date and time to be confirmed. 

Local schools are also offering parents webinars to advise them further, dates for webinars are different per schools.