The Nuffield Practice

 The practice will be closed for training on the following afternoons :-

Tuesday 27th February 2024 13:00 - 18:30 

If during these times you need urgent medical advice please contact NHS 111 online or by phone. Call 999 if you have a lie threatening emergency 

If you are yet to have your Covid 19 Autumn Booster please contact 119 or visit the following web page - Getting a COVID-19 vaccine - NHS (www.nhs.uk) 

FEAR OF FLYING

Patients come to us, asking us to prescribe diazepam for fear of flying. There are a number of very good reasons why prescribing this drug is not recommended.

1) Diazepam is a sedative, which means it makes you sleepy and more relaxed. If there is an emergency during the flight it may impair your ability to concentrate, follow instructions and react to the situation. This could have serious safety consequences for you and those around you.

2) Sedative drugs can make you fall asleep, however when you do sleep it is an unnatural non-REM sleep. This means you won’t move around as much as during natural sleep. This can cause you to be at increased risk of developing a blood clot (DVT) in the leg or even the lung. Blood clots are very dangerous and can even prove fatal. This risk is even greater if your flight is greater than 4 hours.

3) Whilst most people find benzodiazepines like diazepam sedating, a small number have paradoxical agitation and increased aggression. They can also cause disinhibition and lead you to behave in a way that you would not normally. This could impact on your safety as well as that of other passengers and could also get you into trouble with the law.

4) According to the prescribing guidelines doctors follow (BNF) Benzodiazepines are contraindicated (not allowed) in treating phobia. Your doctor would be taking a significant legal risk by prescribing against these guidelines. They are only licensed short term for a crisis in generalised anxiety. If this is the case, you should be getting proper care and support for your mental health and not going on a flight.

5) Diazepam and similar drugs are illegal in a number of countries. They may be confiscated or you may find yourself in trouble with the police.

6) Diazepam stays in your system for quite a while. If your job requires you to submit to random drug testing you may fail this having taken diazepam.

We appreciate that fear of flying is very real and very frightening. A much better approach is to tackle this properly with a Fear of Flying course run by the airlines. We have listed a number of these below.

Easy Jet    http://www.fearlessflyer.easyjet.com

British Airways     http://www.flyingwithconfidence.com/courses/venues/glasgow 

 Virgin     https://www.flyingwithoutfear.co.uk/fear-of-flying-courses/adult-course/ 

What is changing:

There will be an ability now to pre-book appointments with GP in the future: both phone and face to face.

You no longer need to phone up on a specific day that your GP is in.

Online “e-consults” will be available Monday - Thursday from 18:30 to 20:00, and on a Sunday from 16:30 - 20:00.

We are being more transparent with our patients about our capacity for GP appointments, and aligning our work patterns with the BMA’s statement on safe working in General Practice. (https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/managing-workload/safe-working-in-general-practice)

Individual GPs are also spreading their capacity throughout the week.

Why is this changing:

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic we changed our appointment system by having all requests for GP appointments to be triaged first (usually by telephone). This was in response to patient complaints that the wait for appointment was too long. By triaging appointments and dealing with as much as we could remotely, we increased our throughput of consultations with patients receiving GP care far quicker than before. As it happens, the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted GP practices nationally to adopt a similar system for differing reasons.

However, the need to phone was frustrating for patients and the volume of work was exhausting for our GP staff.

Most of our GPs work 10-12 hours a day a week, mostly 3 days a week or more, with additional hours working from home when not at the surgery doing important work which is not directly patient facing but vital for patient care. This works out at around what most people would regard as “full time” over the course of a week.  On a typical day in our old system any one GP may have 30 to 60 patient contacts (mainly by phone). This is more than the BMA’s recommendations on safe working intensity for GPs. We have three to five GPs in on any one day. 

What is not changing:

There will still be an element of telephone or online triage, especially for on the day capacity and to manage demand for appointments generally. The central problem has not changed: the demand for GP time is beyond the capacity we have to provide GP appointments. It is therefore envisaged that the wait for appointments booked in advance will run to several weeks.

We continue to encourage patients to self care were possible and seek alternatives to GP appointments where more appropriate.

Our GP mostly continue to work the equivalent of full time (approximately 37.5 hrs a week) over 3 or more days a week.

What we are continuing to do:

We are continuing to monitor how our appointment system works, and are seeking to expand our clinical workforce. Frustratingly, there is a recruitment and retention problem nationally with GPs. We are also seeking to expand our workforce to support our existing GP according to government's additional roles initiative as part of working in a Primary Care Network (PCN). 

This practice is supporting vital health and care planning and research by sharing your data with NHS Digital. For more information about this see the GP Practice Privacy Notice at:

NHS Digital's own website.

Note that consent to have your data shared in this way is automatic unless you opt out. 

What Data is Shared

Data may be shared from the GP medical records about:

•  any living patient registered at a GP practice in England when the collection started - this includes children and adults
•  any patient who died after 1 July 2021, and was previously registered at a GP practice in England when the data collection start

NHS Digital will not collect patients’ names or addresses. Any other data that could directly identify patients (such as NHS Number, date of birth, full postcode) is replaced with unique codes which are produced by de-identification software before the data is shared with NHS Digital.

This process is called pseudonymisation and means that patients will not be identified directly in the data. NHS Digital will be able to use the software to convert the unique codes back to data that could directly identify patients in certain circumstances, and where there is a valid legal reason.

To Opt out Of Data Sharing

If you would prefer that your identifiable patient data is only shared for your own health care purposes, you can opt-out by registering a Type 1 Opt-out or a National Data Opt-out, or both.

These opt-outs are different and they are explained in more detail in below. Your individual care will not be affected if you opt-out using either option (or both).

A Type 1 opt out has to be registered by your Practice; please let us know if you want to register a type 1 opt out.

A National Opt out can be done without contacting your practice, at https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/

Type 1 Opt-out (opting out of NHS Digital collecting your data)

NHSD will not collect data from GP practices about patients who have registered a Type 1 Opt-out with their practice. More information about Type 1 Opt-outs is in the GP Data for Planning and Research Transparency Notice, including a form that you can complete and send to your GP practice.

The collection started on 1 July 2021 so if you do not want your data to be shared with NHS Digital, please register your Type 1 Opt-out with your GP practice.

If you register a Type 1 Opt-out after this collection has started, no more of your data will be shared with NHSD. They will however still hold the patient data which was shared before you registered the Type 1 Opt-out.
If you do not want NHS Digital to share your identifiable patient data with anyone else for purposes beyond your own care, then you can also register a National Data Opt-out.

 You can download a blank form here which you can then send to us by post or email.

National Data Opt-out (opting out of NHS Digital sharing your data with other organizations)

NHSD will collect data from GP medical records about patients who have registered a National Data Opt-out. The National Data Opt-out applies to identifiable patient data about your health, which is called confidential patient information.

NHS Digital won’t share any confidential patient information about you - this includes GP data, or other information, such as hospital data - with other organisations, unless there is an exemption to this.

To find out more information and how to register a National Data Opt-Out, please read NHSD GP Data for Planning and Research Transparency Notice.

RCGP Research and Surveillance centre

The practice is working with the RCGP research and surveillance centre contributing pseudonymised data for national research and surveillance. These data enable continuous monitoring of infections and diseases in the community and is used in ethically approved research.

If you’re a patient at our practice you can now use the new NHS App, a simple and secure way to access a range of NHS services on your smartphone or tablet.

You can use the NHS App to check your symptoms and get instant advice, book appointments, order repeat prescriptions, view your GP medical record and more.

You will also have evidence of your covid vaccinations on the App; useful for when you have to travel abroad.

If you already use any of the Patient Access providers, you can continue to use them. You can use the NHS App as well.

For more information go to www.nhs.uk/nhsapp

We have been part of the scheme for 3 years.

A map showing premises signed up to the scheme throughout West Oxfordshire can be found on the  WODC website.

https://www.safeplaces.org.uk/search/?query=West%20Oxfordshire%20District%2C%20UK&exact

For more information on the scheme, please see:

https://www.westoxon.gov.uk/communities-and-leisure/community-safety/safe-places/
https://www.facebook.com/SafePlacesOxfordshire/?ref=hl

There is also an App which you can download here:

https://www.safeplaces.org.uk

Community Connect

Medicine that doesn't come in a tube or bottle!

Community Connect, a new Social Prescribing service which helps with people’s health and well-being, is now available at the Nuffield surgery. It links people with community activities to improve mental and physical wellbeing and reduce loneliness.

Social Prescribing is a way in which people living with long term conditions can get access to a variety of support services they need. Issues like help with getting a job, housing, debt management and social contact. Help with these things is often available through local authorities, charities and local community organisations.

Social Prescribing means that the individual can build their support links by working with a Community Navigator who does know, or who has expertise in finding out, what is available.  Following a referral from the GP, together with the Community Navigator, the individual can discuss their problems and identify the support that they need to manage their own health more effectively and meet their own personal goals.

Get in touch: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Find out more at: https://www.canosn.org.uk/Pages/Category/community-connect