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Policy - GP Collective Action
We appreciate many of our patients may have read about GP Collective Action on the news recently.
Collective action is not the same as industrial action, please be assured we are not on strike. We are working as hard as ever to provide services to our patients.
As part of the collective action Giffords Surgery has made the decision that with effect from 2 September 2024 we will ensure that our GPs are limited to no more than 25 appointments a day. This ensures appropriate and safe working levels (as recommended by the British Medical Association). We have put additional ANP minor illness clinics in place to help meet demand.
We consistently reach capacity on a daily basis with regards to the work level we currently do.
This adds significant pressure to our clinical and admin teams.
We just cannot accept doing more unpaid work on behalf or hospitals or specialist clinics without risking things becoming unsafe and mistakes happening. Therefore, for the foreseeable future any unfunded work directed to us from hospitals or private health providers will no longer be carried out and we will be asking these providers to take responsibility themselves. Patients will be advised accordingly should they be affected.
We will also not be able to accept any new requests for Shared Care Agreements for specialist clinic medications and we will be asking the hospital/private clinic specialist to continue providing prescriptions for you (this only applies to specialist medications that require specific ongoing specialist care and monitoring). This does not affect patients who already have established Shared Care prescribing with us.
We will continue to offer our services during our usual opening hours.
As always, patients can also use 111 online for health needs, and only use 999 in a serious or life-threatening emergency.
More information on when to call 999 and when to go to A&E is available via the NHS website.
Remember that your local pharmacist may also be able to offer treatment and prescription medicine for some conditions, without you needing to see a GP.
Conditions that pharmacists can treat:
- earache (aged 1 to 17 years)
- impetigo (aged 1 year and over)
- infected insect bites (aged 1 year and over)
- shingles (aged 18 years and over)
- sinusitis (aged 12 years and over)
- sore throat (aged 5 years and over)
- urinary tract infections or UTIs (women aged 16 to 64 years)
We know access to NHS appointments and GP services can be frustrating and we want to be able to provide you with the best health care we can; we believe fighting for a better deal for GP surgeries that will protect them and prevent them closing is the best way to do this.
Please support us so that we can support you.
