Advice and Practice News
Friends of St James Surgery
The Friends of St James Surgery is a group run by patients of the surgery to foster good communications between the GPs, surgery staff and patients. Among their many activities, to raise funds for medical equipment for the surgery, are quizzes, a 100 Club, supper evenings, raffles and Bric-a-Brac sales. The committee would like to inform everyone that the recent 2008 Christmas Supper raised £312.00, the raffle raised £1000.00 and the 100 club has generated an income of £300.00 and also they would like to extend grateful thanks to everyone who supported these enterprises. If you have any suggestions to make, would like to serve on the committee or require any further information please contact the Chairperson, Mrs J Traverse-Healy.
The doctors and staff of the practice would like to thank the committee of the Friends of St James Surgery for their tireless efforts over the years which have resulted in the purchase of armchairs for the waiting room, a wheelchair, a spirometer, labelling machines, a privacy screen and an orthopaedic chair, for use by those who have had recent hip replacements.
Forthcoming Events
Second-hand books are still on sale in the surgery foyer at 10p each for paperbacks and 50p for hardbacks. All monies raised will be used to help buy more equipment for the surgery.
Intermediate Skin Surgery
Dr John New, the senior partner at the surgery, is now providing this operating service on a regular basis, normally on a Tuesday. Referral is via a GP, so please let any family and friends who are not registered at this surgery know that we now provide this service so that they can speak to their own GP about it.
Electronic Sign-in System
The Surgery has an electronic sign-in system which can be used by patients to indicate that they have arrived for their appointment and thereby decrease waiting times at the reception desk.
Immunisations
All pre-school children are now routinely offered a Pneumoccal Conjugate vaccine at 2, 4 and 13 months of age to protect them from pneumoccal infection which can cause pneumonia, blood poisoning and meningitis. For children under 2 years of age who were immunised before this new vaccine was introduced in September 2006, a catch-up programme is being provided for them.
Also available are Hib Booster immunisations for children born between 13th March 2003 and 3rd September 2005. A catch-up campaign is being organised so that these children can receive the extra protection they need against the diseases caused by Hib infection such as blood poisoning (septicaemia), meningitis and pneumonia.
In September 2008 a programme to give all 8 year girls the HPV vaccine was started in schools. A national rolling 3 year programme has also been developed to cover 8-13 year olds and a Primary Care based programme has been set up for 17-18 year olds which will be administered in the surgery. This includes all girls born between 1st September 1990 and 31st August 1991. A total of 3 vaccines will be administered and this service is free of charge. Further information about the vaccine can be obtained from www.immunisation.nhs.uk/hpv.
Primary Care Centre
After several public consultations, the final decisions are currently being made regarding the construction of the new Primary Care Centre (PCC), which will independently house the three Devizes surgeries (St James Surgery, The Southbroom Surgery and Lansdowne Surgery) under one roof. The building will also accommodate community staff from the Wiltshire PCT, as well as X-ray and MRI scanning. The PCC will be located at Green Lane and will be sited next to the independent NHS Treatment Centre which is already under construction. It is thought that the Primary Care Centre will take between 2-3 years to build.