Job Vacancies Closed
The sessional Doctor and Receptionist vacancies previously posted on this site have now closed.
Swine Flu ( Influenza H1N1)
Potential pandemic – be prepared. Have a few boxes of tissues and disinfectant wipes handy, paracetamol, ibuprofen and your favourite squash or cordial for hot drinks. Be meticulous about sneezing into tissues, safely discarding the tissues and washing your hands with soap and water afterwards. Isolation and phoning for advice is much better than attending the surgery. Staying at home is safer for you, your family and the community, and most of the appropriate advice is more speedily available over the phone. If you are ill and have been to any of the heavily affected countries or in contact with anyone who has had a flu like illness plus overseas exposure, then we will arrange the relevant swabs and treatment through the local division of the Health Protection Agency. We are assured that the Health Authority has enough Tamiflu treatment available for over one third of the population of Cambridgeshire if a severe epidemic does arise, so please do not worry about rationing issues..
During any significant epidemic locally, we would appreciate patients saving all non-urgent problems till the epidemic passes. We will offer as full a service as we are able to. Please remember that some of our staff may be affected and this may reduce our ability to cope with anything but the most serious problems. We will substantially increase our telephone working and almost certainly try to allocate one doctor to visiting the housebound and severely affected patients. There has been a lot of thought and planning to ensure adequate preparedness for any epidemics. In the event of any pandemic, it would be helpful if you could advise any "flu friends" to remain calm, as any panic will worsen the situation.
2009-05-07
Charitable Donations to and from the Rainbow Surgery.
We are very grateful to all the team at the local hospital’s Charity Shop in Ramsey who yet again this year gave £13,000 to various charities and £1,000 to the Rainbow Surgery. Between the savings made by careful prescribing and referrals, and the Charity Shop donation, we are going to buy various pieces of medical equipment including better ear equipment, more accurate weighing scales and a specialist digital camera for skin problems, and more office equipment to improve the efficiency of our team.
One of our patients gave up his job in England and has emigrated to Uganda where he is helping run a very exciting community programme. This includes education, agricultural support and health facilities in a remote and rural area. In addition, he has set up Uganda’s only brass band which has performed at the Commonwealth Heads meeting in Kampala. This activity gives many teenagers something really stimulating to focus on and broadens their horizons, education, and earns them and their families some money. The surgery has donated money to help pay for some specific medical treatments, a large quantity of mosquito nets for children, books for community health workers, and specific medicines which seem to be cheaper in England than in Uganda!
We have also supported a rural eye camp in India for cataract surgery and an orphanage in South India. All of these projects involve no intermediaries and every penny we donate goes directly to the rural communities. We are happy to share details of these charities with anyone interested in supporting their good work.
2009-05-07
Patient Group Meeting – November 08
There was a large turnout at this meeting where we discussed the continuing impressive results from the patient feedback questionnaires and the results of the National Access Survey, showing that we were the highest scoring practice in Cambridgeshire. We are delighted that patients appreciate the helpfulness of the receptionists and the easy phone access as well as appointment availability. There was a brief presentation about our innovative new work in alcohol related problems and Nick Charles gave an eloquent brief account of his life , his previous work and his hopes for a local service. Fuller details are in a later paragraph on Alcohol Services.
There was a lengthy discussion about the use of savings made by the surgery from its notional budget by careful referrals and prescribing. Many of our proposals were rejected by the PCT but almost all of them were acknowledged by those present at the Patient Group Meeting to be worthwhile. By April 2008, the PCT had again rejected the majority of the bids, despite support from the Patient Group, including the bid for automatic doors. Very sad...
Clinical Quality Markers
The national Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) are challenging targets focusing on many clinical areas and measurable aspects of that care. The Rainbow Surgery again scored over 99.8% (almost the full 1,000 points). In many areas we were substantially over the Governments upper target for individual indicators. The whole process is being substantially altered for the 2009/10 year and it will be increasingly difficult to achieve such high outcomes.
2009-05-07
Northern Gateway and RAF Upwood Developments
Most of you will have seen that the waste land next to the surgery car park has had a major makeover and some excavation work during the early part of 2009. These were related to archaeological surveys and soil sampling for foundations and structural assessment. Tesco have been give planning permission for a store on the St Marys Road, leaving Ramsey, with a modest housing development. The planning gain Section 106 funding released from this will contribute to a community centre that is supposed to be situated on the waste land between the Rainbow development and the wine warehouse. There are ongoing discussions about the car parking and housing on this site as well as discussions about a footbridge over the High Lode and improvements to the river bank area. This will obviously have a significant impact on the town and a small impact on the surgery. We have made our comments about the community centre and car parking provision to the Town and District Councils and developers.
The Upwood development is potentially going to have much more impact on Ramsey , and it is still very early days..... watch this space!
2009-05-07
Chiropody
Over the last 15 years Odele Stevens has provided a private chiropody service based at the Rainbow Surgery which has increased from 1 day a week to 2½ days a week. At the same time there has been increasing pressure on rooms in the Rainbow Surgery and Odele and Zoe moved to their own premises in Ramsey on 1st May 2009.
2009-05-07
Alcohol Services
Nick Charles and Nikki De Villiers have been offering an unparalleled level of support for our patients who would like to reduce their harmful drinking and support for their families and loved ones. This builds on their work in London over the previous 20 years where they have supported over 20,000 people with drink problems. We are so impressed with this service that we are fighting to secure funding for them and to use their model as one strategy in a future County wide approach to alcohol damage. If any of you have concerns or would like personal help, you can contact them on 07809 774769.
2009-05-07
Extended Access.
This has been running for 12 months now and we have found that the Saturday mornings were very under utilised but the weekday early mornings, from 7.00am, were very popular. We have therefore decided to offer 1 hour extra early morning and evening slots each week, but to abandon the Saturday slots except during the October flu vaccination season.
We would appreciate it if those who have significant commutes could ask for these extended access slots, but that where people can make the normal working hours, that they use those.
2009-05-07
Appointment Cards
We are shortly expecting the installation of printers to enable us to give patients printed appointment cards when they make their appointments and a further printer in the nurse’s room to help to speed up the labelling of all the samples.
