Surgery News & Updates
Covid-19 - Corona Virus - 12/03/2020
Due to the current Corona Virus the surgery has decided to cancel all face to face appointments. We will offer telephone consultations with a GP or a nurse for routine or emergency problems. If you need to be examined after your telephone consultations , you will be seen.
Prescriptions
All Prescriptions must be picked up at pharmacy. Please do not come to the surgery unless absolutely necessary or asked by a GP.
Covid-19 - Corona Virus - 06/03/2020
The Practice has suspended online appointment booking for the time being, in the interest of public health during the current corona virus outbreak.
Online prescription ordering is not affected.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Covid-19 - Corona Virus
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1. General Practitioners are not expected to clinically assess patients who fulfil the epidemiological criteria
for a possible case, other than by telephone triage.
2. Please notify Public Health of all possible cases by email to: fv-uhb.healthprotectionteam@nhs.net. No
further action is required if the patient does not require urgent medical attention.
3. If the patient does require urgent medical attention then please phone the Public Health consultant on call
who will arrange with the Emergency Department Consultant on call for the patient to be assessed at
FVRH.
4. The NHS inform website is also a useful information source NHS Inform https://www.nhsinform.scot.
5. Please be aware that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a notifiable disease and severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) a notifiable organism. The CMO letter is attached.
6. HPS advises that anyone returning from travel that included the Lombardy or Veneto regions of Italy and
who has relevant symptoms should be requested to self-isolate until further advice can be provided.
Please email the individuals’ details to Public Health and they will be contacted and followed up.
7. If a patient who fulfils the criteria self presents to the practice the guidance on how to carry out
decontamination is provided in the national Primary Care Guidance.
8. Here is the link to the latest national guidance from Health Protection
Scotland: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/a-to-z-of-topics/wuhan-novel-coronavirus/#publications.
Bank Holidays & Closures
Denny Cross closes on Bank Holidays. The following dates will be affected by these closures:
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Monday 3rd January 2022 (New Years Day)
Monday 4th January 2022
Friday 15th April 2022
Monday 18th April 2022
Monday 2rd May 2022
Thursday 2nd June 2022
Friday 3rd June 2022
Monday 1st August 2022
Monday 29th August 2022
Wednesday 30th November 2022
Monday 26th December 2022
Tuesday 27th December 2022 (Christmas Day)
Create Days
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Building Work Updates
Currently, building works are on hold, so should not affect your visit to Denny Cross.
Travel
We are reminding patients who want to travel abroad at any time please check out our travel advice below to see if you require any vaccinations. We also ask that patients contact the surgery and fill out a travel vaccination form. This form must be filled in and returned to the surgery 6-8 weeks in advance of travel dates. If the forms are handed in any later than this, there might not be time to check the forms and for any necessary medications to take effect.
If you have booked a last minute excursion and are unable to hand in the forms on time we would advise you visit the travel clinic at Tryst Medical Centre (01324 551555), there may be a charge for this service.
Why is my Doctor late?
We at Denny Cross Medical Centre are aware that on occasion our doctors run late. We try everything in our power to prevent this but it is a fine balancing act to see as many patients as possible in as short a time as possible while giving each patient the full time they require. If you click below to open up our helpful guide of hints and tips you can do to help our doctors run on time and see how a routine appointment is expected to go.
Get a letter from your Doctor
In this Practice, we receive frequent requests for medical information by numerous organisations. Often this is reasonable. However we strongly object to the culture of “Get a letter from your doctor.”
Often patients themselves are perfectly able to provide a description of their medical problems and how these affect their needs. This has the advantage that the information is given to the organisation in lay terms which should be easily understood by the non medical staff who assess their relative priority. There should only rarely be a need to approach the GP for a more detailed report.
The NHS does not fund medical reports by GPs, and GPs will charge a fee for such reports, as is done for any other private medical report. However, GPs have no wish to provide reports where the information can be easily obtained from the individual themselves. Patients should not have to pay for reports to organisations when they can, in most cases, provide the necessary information themselves.
The routine request for “Get a letter from your doctor” simply adds to the ever increasing burden of paperwork which detracts from the time GPs can spend with their patients.
An efficient system of self reporting of medical and functional problems will reduce the administrative burden on the NHS and allow an equally effective prioritisation of needs for those organisations that request this information.
The GPs in this practice will therefore not routinely provide third-parties with medical reports or letters, which are requested via our patients.
However, if the organisation that has requested “Get a letter from your doctor”, would like to write to us directly we will respond quickly.
Please give this letter to the person/organisation that has asked you to “Get a letter from your doctor”, and instruct them:
1. To write directly to us, requesting the information they require. Why they require it. And to whom we should reply.
2. They will need to enclose a mandate which is signed by yourself, where you give them permission to receive medical information about you.
3. They will be expected to pay a fee for this report, and we will send them an invoice.
