Dear Patients,
Happy New Year to you all, we understand that it’s not a great start to the new year with more lockdown. We are still open between the hours of 8.30am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday and we still offer evening telephone consultations through our PCN extended access appointments. However, we are extremely busy at the moment with usual winter pressures and the additional pandemic on top, we have been advised by NHS England to suspend all non urgent work and make the pandemic and the COVID Vaccine our priorities. Please do not contact the practice if your requirements are non urgent and use the website and 111 online for assistance. Please be patient with our team as they are working flat out taking on extra duties to maintain the services we are able to supply.
Practice staff are being released from the practice to assist with the COVID vaccine centre at Derby Arena and as a result the services we are able to offer in the Practice are greatly reduced.
What’s happening now?
Right now, we are getting lots of queries about the COVID vaccine. Please do not contact the Practice, we or the NHS will be in touch to book you an appointment when it becomes available for your age group and condition, as we are following strict guidelines given to us about who we contact and when. The phone lines are getting jammed with people requesting information on the vaccine and it is stopping those needing to access urgent medical help. Please be patient and wait for us to contact you.
We are using the texting services to keep patients up to date on developments as things are changing very quickly. Apologies if you get more than one text and if it appears short in it’s written word – we have a limit to how many words we can send.
If you do not have a mobile number registered, we will not be able to reach you that way. Please contact us on the website and let us know your number and we will update your records.
Be Aware: There are some scams about, so if unsure – drop us a line on the website using the Contact the Practice with a General Enquiry Form.
NHSE and Practice will never ask for bank numbers or NHS numbers
What’s going on with the vaccination programme?
The news of the covid vaccines is very heartening, however there are still many logistical issues to overcome at City level which they are working through as quickly as they can with the CCG, NHSE and other providers. This is changing on a daily basis.
The Vernon and Lanes Medical Centre is involved with providing staffing for this campaign and we have started at the City Organisers behest, to contact and book in patients over the age of 85, starting with the oldest members of our Practice that are not housebound or suffer from certain medical complaints, this was done last week. They will receive their vaccinations this week.
At the moment there is a central vaccination point in the city at Derby Arena on Pride Park. The surgery is contacting patients as the vaccine become available to book the appropriate slots. The Derby practices have centralised this service because there is currently more of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine available than the Oxford Astra Zeneca one. The Pfizer vaccine still needs to be stored at a very low temperatures, and that makes it very hard to transport to several locations and requires special refrigeration that practices do not have. locations. There is no choice of vaccination – patients are given what the City are given by NHSE. It is likely that the Oxford vaccine will be used in the first instance to start vaccinating Care homes, starting with the largest and by the City provider.
As soon as we get any update, as we have done today – we will update you all.
Thank you to you all for your patience,
The Team at The Vernon and Lanes Medical Centre