Nairn Healthcare News April 2015

Reproduced below is the latest newsletter from Nairn Healthcare Group

Nairn Healthcare News April 2015

Staffing

Nairn Healthcare has said goodbye to long-serving Practice Nurse Kathy Gaffney who retired in February however we will be welcoming a new nurse and healthcare assistant in the upcoming weeks.

Our two GP registrars, Dr Clark and Dr Milton, are currently working at Raigmore Hospital and on maternity leave respectively but we hope to see them both return in the near future.

Step Count Challenge

Twenty members of NHG staff are giving the National Step Count Challenge a go. We will be counting our daily steps for 8 weeks and hopefully will reap the benefits that walking entails. Walking at a moderate pace is ideal and active people live longer and healthier lives. Walking reduces the risk of heart disease, colon and breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, depression and reduces blood pressure. Not only that, walking lowers the risk of strokes, improves mood and manages weight. As the staff are in four different teams, it gives us a bit of healthy competition too.

Visitors from Spain 

Nairn Healthcare welcomed two GPs from Castelldefels in Catalonia on Monday 23rd March to our Practice. Dr Antoni Peris i Grao (Director General) and Dr Ionut Chirac visited to share ideas and to discuss projects. We discussed digital health developments in both Scotland and Catalonia and identified common areas of interest and opportunities for future collaboration. Alongside Donna Henderson (Service Development Manager, Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare) and Elaine Mead (Chief Executive, NHS Highland), Dr Adrian Baker, Dr Andrew Evennett and Tanya Allan (Assistant Practice Manager) compared and contrasted primary care and community based services in Highland and Catalonia.

We will welcome Norwegian visitors to the Practice again in April.

New Physio Service

There is a new NHS 24 service available to patients over 16 who suffer from a muscle or joint problem and are seeking to access NHS physiotherapy. The MATS (Musculoskeletal Advice and Triage Service) was launched on 12th January 2015 and is a centralised helpline based in Scotland. Patients will speak initially to a call-handler and if necessary, a trained physiotherapist for support. Initially, this will be telephone based, with additional information sent by post. If MATS feel that a further referral is required, patients will be referred to the Physiotherapy Department in Nairn Town and County Hospital and patients should be seen in 4 weeks (a waiting time target); often this is quicker than a GP referral which can take up to 12 weeks.

To get in touch with MATS, please call 0845 604 001 between 9am – 6pm, Monday- Friday. For more information about this service, you can visit www.nhsinform.co.uk/msk.

NHG Statistics

HOME VISITS- FEBRUARY

Every month, we hope to give our patients an insight into how many patients we see and treat on a monthly basis. This month we looked into home visits for the month of February.

The Healthcare Assistants do regular home visits on a Monday and Thursday for those who are unable to attend the Practice. In February alone, they visited 35 patients. 

The GPs visited 158 patients at their own home plus an extra 113 visits were carried out to the nursing homes. Another 18 visits took place out-with the surgery opening times.

Home visits are available for patients who are unfit to travel to one of the surgeries. The visit requests are handled by the receptionists who will ask for a little information to pass onto the Duty GP.

Bowel Screening

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in Scotland. Each year, approximately 4,000 are diagnosed with this condition. However, if found early, bowel cancer is highly treatable. The best way to detect the early stages of bowel cancer is to do a home screening test. Everyone aged 50-74 is sent one every two years. If you haven’t done a test in the last two years, please get in touch by calling 0800 0121 833 or visit www.bowelscreeningtest.org.