On Friday 21st August, SPC received the following message from St Augustine’s Surgery:
We recognise that the changes made happened rapidly and for some this might have made our services less accessible. We really appreciate the residents patience and understanding as we work through this process. A huge amount of work and planning is going on behind the scenes to allow us to restart services and to keep patients safe. At Saltford the types of appointments we can offer are restricted by the number of parking spaces available and the space within in the waiting area. In the coming weeks we will start to redeploy staff to Saltford but in order to reduce the transmission of infection we will only arrange face to face assessment where it is clinically necessary. For now the waiting area will remain closed and we kindly ask that patients continue to conduct all enquiries by telephone or via online services and only attend the surgery if asked to do so by a clinician.
For most long term health conditions we provide annual assessments done in the month of birth (the frequency might be increased if the condition is not well controlled). We are starting to reintroduce this monitoring if it is essential or if it can be done by online questionnaire, phone or video call.
We also know that flu vaccination will be very important this year if you are eligible for a vaccination we will be in touch with shortly to provide a pre-arranged date. Thank you for your continued support.
If there are regular opportunities to give updates via a newsletter I would be more than happy to do so, if it involves the local community in shaping our plans/services.
In addition to our website we also have also established a Facebook page to share regular updates / information with patients, this can be found: @staugustinesmedicalpracticekeynsham