A new Covid-19 vaccination programme for those most at risk of serious illness from the virus will launch this spring.

The Allan Practice will be running booster clinics on 27 and 28 April from Calcot Medical Centre.

Patients who fulfil the criteria will be able to book their appointment on the National Booking System, which will go live Monday April 15 or by calling 119.

Please do not contact your GP practice to arrange your vaccine.

Following guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the spring booster is available to:

• Adults aged 75 and over
• Residents in a care home for older adults
• People aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed.

Professor Wei Shen Lim, Covid-19 immunisation chair for the JCVI, said “The Covid-19 spring programme will continue to focus on those at greatest risk of getting seriously ill, who will benefit the most from a further vaccine does.

“It is important that everyone who is eligible takes up the offer this spring. Current vaccines provide good protection against severe disease, hospitalisation and can protect those most vulnerable from death.”

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) echoed the JCVI’s advice. Their director of public health programmes, Dr Mary Ramsay, urged everyone who is eligible to take up the offer of a vaccine “as soon as possible”.

Services for Adults with suspected ADHD have very long waits nationally, and our local provider has closed to new referrals.

Your GP may not be able to enter into "shared care" arrangements with online/remote/other providers for Adult ADHD care, and therefore may not recommend an NHS referral at all. Or they may be able to refer to alternative providers "for assessment/diagnosis only", but not able to share care for treatment.

Your GP may suggest a referral to the private sector, but would not be expected to enter into "shared care" with private specialists, as the NHS GP.

This is a "commissioning gap" - where the services avalable on the NHS do not meet the needs of the population - and it has been raised locally and nationally.

You may wish to raise it yourself, e.g. with your MP and/or with the ICB bobicb.plannedcare@nhs.net.

The Allan Practice has organised a Flu Clinic for individuals over the age of 65 and patients aged 18 to 64 who are considered 'at risk.' The clinic will take place on Sunday, September 17th, and Saturday, September 23rd, with appointments available from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM.

To schedule an appointment, you can utilise our online booking services. (We kindly request that you only call us if online booking is not feasible.) In order to minimize traffic congestion, we encourage you to consider walking to the clinic if it's possible and avoid arriving earlier than your scheduled appointment time.

From 30th of January, for approximately 20 weeks, construction works will be carried out.

This will provide much needed space for the two practices that are currently located at the Calcot Medical Centre. The Hall Practice will be relocating to the newly refurbished Chalfont Health Centre (at the top of the car park) and The Allan Practice will remain in the Calcot Medical Centre.

We apologise for any disruption this causes to our patients, but we are delighted that the much-needed additional space for both practices has been approved and funded by the NHSE.

The practice staff and most of the building team will be parking over in the hospital car park to leave the medical centre car park as free as possible for our patients.

Healthy choices lead to rewards with new BetterPoints Bucks app

For more information please click the link below:

BPB article Jan 23.docx

LG incident duty of candour notice (003).docx

We are receiving an unprecedented demand from our patients due to the national outbreaks of Strep A/Scarlet Fever and general winter illnesses. Before calling regarding a concern on Strep A/Scarlet Fever please visit NHS Frimley Healthier Together website to find:

Symptoms

NHS traffic light guidance to help you identify next steps to take

When to seek medical help and where from https://frimley-healthiertogether.nhs.uk/parentscarers/worried-your-child-unwell/scarlet-fever

The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows that scarlet fever cases continue to remain higher than we would typically see at this time of year. Please visit the link below for a recent update:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukhsa-update-on-scarlet-fever-and-invasive-group-a-strep

How can patients Opt Out and what does it mean?

Patients have the right to opt out of having their personal confidential data being used for purposes other than their individual direct health care. This means that before the practice can share, disclose, or allow access to personal identifiable data by other organisations for purposes other than to provide them with individual direct health care, (such as Planning or Research), patient should be offered the right to object via an opt out.

There are exemptions to opting out and cases where sharing patients personal confidential data outside of their direct care is allowed, see below in section 4.

Type 1 Opt Out

Patients may opt out of having their personal confidential data being extracted or shared by the GP practice for purposes other than their individual direct care. 

It is the responsibility of the GP practice to record Type 1 Opt Outs on the patients record. Type 1 Opt outs only apply to GP data.

Patients can request that a Type 1 Opt Out is applied to their medical record using the codes provided, this means that before the GP practice wish to share patients details for anything other than the patients individual direct care, they have to exclude those patients from their search criteria.

It also means that when NHS Digital extract patient data from GP practices in order to inform Planning or Research those patients will be excluded from the extraction. It does not apply to the data NHS Digital collects from other health providers.

The National Data Opt Out – NDOO

The National Data Opt Out replaced the Type 2 Opt Out Programme in May 2018.  All patients details that do not wish to have their personal confidential data used for Planning or Research will be excluded from these uses. Patients’ with an NDOO applied, will still have their data  extracted from the GP practice.  Patients wishing to have a National Data Opt Out (NDOO) applied to their data will need to request this via the ‘Your Data Matters’ site or by making a phone call to the number supplied. 

The National Data Opt Out will still allow patients personal confidential and special category data to be gathered from their GP surgery by NHS digital but will be excluded from planning or research activities.

NHS Digital collect personal confidential data from GP practices and secondary care providers to instruct planning and research. All data collected is pseudonymised before sharing with CCG or other organisations

Exemptions to Opt Out 

There are exemptions to patients opting out of having their personal confidential data used for Planning, Research or other secondary uses, these are listed below.

• It does not apply where information is being used or shared for an individual patient's care;
• It does not apply to information that is anonymised in line with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Code of Practice (CoP) on Anonymisation or is aggregate or count type data;
• It does not apply when there is a legal requirement to disclose information that sets aside the common law duty of confidentiality, for example Section 251, but you will still need to determine how the common law duty of confidentiality is being met;
• It does not apply if a patient has agreed to a specific use of data but patients who have registered a national data opt-out can agree to take part in a specific research project or clinical trial, by giving their explicit consent;
• It does not apply if disclosure is being used to protect public health, for example to:
  • diagnose communicable diseases
  • control or prevent their spread
  • deliver and monitor vaccination programmes
  • manage risks of infection from food or water supplies or the environment
• It does not apply to the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey (CPES) and CQC NHS Patient Survey Programme;
• It does not apply to local audits;
• There are a small number of exceptional circumstances where clinicians, Caldicott Guardians and managers can decide to share information based on public interest but these are made on a case-by-case basis and carefully consider the circumstances involved.
• Specific exemptions have been made for disclosure of data for:
  • Public Health England National Disease Registers
  • Assuring Transformation e.g. It does not apply to confidential patient information about people with learning disabilities and/or autism who are in hospital for their mental health or due to challenging behaviour which is disclosed under the following approval: Assuring Transformation: Enhanced Quality Assurance Process Data flow (CAG 8-02 (a-c)/2014).
  • National patient experience surveys
• There are specific rules in the application of national data opt-outs to data flows into and out of NHS Digital (formerly known as the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC)) as these recognise NHS Digital’s role as the national safe haven and the specific powers it has under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Further information about these can be found at Policy Guidance Document.

Please click here to read an important letter written by Dr Gurjit Dhesi to his patients.

From 1^st January 2022 all electronic communication from patients must go through Online Services (e.g. Patient Access, Evergreen Life, NHS App) as this email address will no longer be active. This is to streamline communications and ensure patients receive the most effective care.

If you do not have an account, send your name, date of birth, mobile number & email address to: online.theallanpractice@nhs.net and we will send your account details to your email.