ACCOUNTABLE GP

All patients, including children registered at Hill Top Medical Centre have been allocated a named, accountable GP.

For your day to day consultations you can continue to see any  GP within the practice

Patients are welcome to contact the surgery if they wish to know their named GP

Smear Tests

One in three women and people with a cervix don’t attend cervical screening (smear tests). This Cervical Cancer Prevention Week (17 – 23 January), staff at Dudley Public Health are on a mission to change that by renewing their calls for residents to have a smear test when asked to do so.

Smear tests are offered to all women and anyone with a cervix aged 25 years and over. It is a quick and simple health check for the cervix and helps detect very early changes that may lead to cancer, meaning it can be easily treated before it even develops.

It takes around 5 minutes and people can have a smear test any time, except during their period.

Five tips to make smear tests easier:

1. Don’t worry about what you look like down there. Your medic will have seen it all before and will be professional

2. Wear something comfy and easy to get on and off

3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Speak to your friends, the nurse, just ask whatever you want to know – there is no pressure to have the test

4. If you’re nervous, ask in advance for the nurse to give you a double appointment to give you more time to talk and not feel rushed

5. Why not buy yourself a treat to have after your smear test – like a hot drink, a magazine, or whatever it is that makes you happy?

Whether you get a letter asking you to book your test, or if you have ignored one before, book your free smear test at your doctor’s surgery. It’s free and confidential.

For more information on cervical screening, or on what may happen if you are told that you have cervical cell changes, go to Jo’s Trust https://www.jostrust.org.uk/information

For those of you who are having trouble in getting through to the Surgery or feel that you are not offered an appointment as soon as you would like, we are listening to your comments and advise as follows:

DOCTORS

Each Doctor when on duty has 18 appointments

in the morning and 18 appointments in the afternoon.

These are made up of a mixture of urgent "on the day" slots;                                                     

* Slots that Nurses book into

* Slots for Doctors to book into for patients they are concerned about 

* Slots for patients with Long Term Conditions and some pre-bookable appointments.

A Doctor also must deal with all Pathology results, Referrals, Clinic letters, Prescription queries,

admin queries and tasks from the multi-disciplinary team members. All of this must be dealt with

daily, when the doctor Is not seeing patients.

NURSES

Our Nurses have a mixture of book on day appointments and

pre-bookable appointments, Each Nurse has their own speciality:

*One is more for Diabetes / Mental Health concerns /Female concerns e.g. Menopause

*And the other is our Respiratory Nurse, e.g. Asthma, COPD, breathing issues.

They both deal with all other routine Nurse appointments too,

We have a Health Care Assistant who deals with routine Nurse appointments. All the team will see up to 15-20 patients in the morning AND afternoon during each of their shifts. They also must deal with queries from staff/patients, create blood test forms, assess readings patients have supplied for them, Referrals, Clinic letters, Audits and some prescription queries.

RECEPTION & ADMIN

Our Reception/Admin Team work non-stop during their shifts, taking continuous phones calls,  queries  from patients which may then need to be passed to another staff member. They deal  with all admin  duties too, including completing referrals from a Clinician, making referrals that  are within their scope,  completing all repeat prescription requests, dealing with tasks from  Clinicians, making calls, texts,  letters  to patients, inviting patients for screening clinics,  scanning all documents on to patient records - the list  is endless.  Therefore, as I hope you will  appreciate, the working day is extremely long, and  everyone is  working as hard as they  possibly can to accommodate as many of our 10500 patients every  day of the  working week.

We appreciate how upset and frustrated you may feel at times, but please bear in mind just how hard we are all working and trying our very best to care for you, our patients.