Your Health Partnership

29/10/2025

Your Health Partnership is moving to a fresh new page! Come and find us over Health Partnership Primary Care Network https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568989295502

06/10/2022

This message is for patients registered with Regis Medical Centre, Oakham Surgery, Whiteheath Medical Centre, Mace Street Clinic, Great Bridge Health Centre and Lyndon Primary Care Centre.
Key messages:

• We know and are very sorry that some of you have experienced long waits to receive a response

• Our system has been overwhelmed by an unexpectedly high number of requests leading to a backlog

• We are working hard to clear the existing backlog; to do this we need to limit the number of requests we can accept each day

• Once the backlog is cleared, we will set a daily limit which allows us to respond to every request the day it is submitted
We are aware of difficulties some of our patients have faced in contacting the practice since the launch of our new system.

We are sorry that the system has not worked in the way we envisaged, meaning that some patients have waited several days for a response after contacting the practice. We recognise that this has caused some people distress which we regret.

Helping patients to access the care they need at the right time and with the right professional is our most important duty. General Practices in England have been struggling for some time to offer access to patients at the time and in the manner they would choose.

Our model, using the Anima platform, is intended to offer the opportunity for any of our patients to tell us the help they require with a ‘hub’ of GPs and other health professionals responding to each request.

We want you, our patients, to have the confidence that we will accept your request whether it is submitted online or by speaking to one of our telephony or reception teams, so that patients unable to use the internet are not disadvantaged.

We still believe this is the right approach so we can use our resources most efficiently for the benefit of our patients.

To do this we have, until the last few days, not placed any limit on the number of requests we accept each day – we wanted to avoid the previous situation of very long telephone waits for patients, often to be told there are no appointments left and to call back the next day. We have planned and staffed our hub and normal surgeries in the practices to meet a level of demand seen at other practices with similar systems in place.

The reality of offering unlimited access to submit requests has overwhelmed the system leading to long waits for some people.

We have prioritised contacting and, where needed, arranging appointments for people with the most urgent problems and many of you will have had rapid responses after submitting your request.

There is now a backlog of cases in the system which we need to work through in the coming days. Our team worked all weekend to get through most of the backlog and we are putting on extra sessions this weekend to do the same.

Until we have managed this backlog, we will need to apply a limit to the number of requests we are able to accept each day, thank you for bearing with us while we do this. Those of you who feel they need more urgent attention and are unable to submit a request may still call NHS 111.

Once we have cleared the backlog, we will then accept a larger number of requests each day up to the limit our hub team can process the same day. This means that no one will be left waiting several days for a response.

We want to make this work for all of you and thank you for your patience while we get it right and will update you again next week.

23/12/2020

Things are likely to be a little bit different for people this year but however you are spending the next few days, we wish you all a happy, healthy and restful festive period.

If you need us, we'll be here:

Thursday 24th December - 08:00am - 8:00pm
Friday 25th December - 08:00am - 9:30am
Saturday 26th December - 08:30am - 11:30am
Sunday 27th December - 09:00am - 11:00am
Monday 28th December - 08:30am - 11:30am

Tuesday 29th - Thursday 31st December open as usual (08:00am - 8:00pm)

Friday 1st January 2021 - 08:30am - 11:30am

For further details: https://yhp.org.uk/christmas-and-new-year-opening

28/11/2020

Need help with a non-urgent medical or admin issue?

Try our new online service here: https://bit.ly/2VezBkY

In December 2020 (live from Monday 30th November) we are trialling a new way for patients to submit non-urgent medical and administrative issues via a secure online form; answer a few simple questions and submit your request to the practice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Requests will be reviewed Monday – Friday between 08:00am and 6:00pm and assigned to the best person to help you with your query.

You can access this service without needing to register first; no username or password is required as identity is confirmed by automatically checking information from your record using a two-step authentication process – you may have experienced this before when using internet banking.

We know how difficult it has been for people to get in touch with us; demand for appointments is high and and our phone lines are incredibly busy.

Services like this one (sometimes referred to as e-consultations) are in place all over the UK and we have spent some time looking carefully at different systems before choosing to trial this one.

This is not designed to exclude people who do not go online – the more people we have accessing services online means fewer people using our phone lines which in turn makes it easier for those who, for whatever reason, find it difficult to use the internet and/or prefer to call us.

Try it out for yourself and let us know what you think.

20/10/2020

Our telephone lines remain a challenge for many people, particularly now that because of the pandemic, visiting our practice is by appointment only.

In an effort to improve the situation we have simplified our telephone menu to 3 options and 2 queues for incoming calls; one for appointments and one for everything else:

Option 1: Cancel an appointment – if you wish to cancel an appointment use this option to leave a short message and we will cancel it for you; if we need to speak to you a member of the team will call you back

Option 2: Book an appointment – use this option to book any type of appointment; same-day team, book in advance, home visits etc. When all of the appointments with our same-day team are gone, you will hear a short message to tell you – you can still hold the line and speak to someone who may be able to offer you an alternative.

Option 3: Anything else – if you are calling us for anything else please use Option 3

In addition to updating our menu options we have made extra staff available to answer the phone during busy periods – we will be keeping a close eye on the situation in the coming days and weeks.

We would encourage all patients to register for online services which allows you to book appointments, order repeat medication, access information from your record and send direct messages to the practice.

The more people we have registered and using online services means fewer people using our phone lines which in turn makes it easier for those who, for whatever reason, cannot use the internet.

To register, please speak to a member of our team or send a direct message to the page here; we can do this with you over the phone and send your log-in details to you.

08/10/2020

We have been working incredibly hard to minimise the impact of Covid-19 on our patients and colleagues but like so many people across our community we are now being directly affected by the rise in cases.

An increasing number of colleagues, both clinical and non-clinical, from across the practice are having to isolate at home because of the virus.

Yes, this means that people are waiting longer to get through to us on the phone; waiting longer for an appointment; waiting longer for a prescription - we apologise for any delays you are experiencing.

We know it is frustrating but we want to stress that if you need us we are still here, still doing our best to keep the service going.

Please. Please. Please. Continue to follow the guidance. Wash your hands. Cover your face. Make space.

Thank you for your continued patience and support. Keep an eye out for any further updates.

14/09/2020

From Tuesday 15th September, new restrictions come into force within Birmingham, Sandwell and Solhull local authority areas. In summary you must not allow people you do not live with in your home or garden; you must not visit people you do not live with - within or outside Sandwell.

Read the full guidance here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/birmingham-sandwell-and-solihull-local-restrictions

Protect yourself. Protect others: Hands. Face. Space.

28/07/2020

Some useful information here regarding how the services provided by Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust continue to be affected by Coronavirus

Please note: At this time visiting restrictions are still in effect at our organisation. You can find full details about this other matters that have been affected by Coronavirus on our public information page, https://www.swbh.nhs.uk/media/coronavirus-public-information/

24/07/2020

As of today, the law regarding the wearing of face coverings in public has changed - for full details and the latest guidance visit the gov.uk website here https://bit.ly/2ZVjJqH

We have been approached by a number of patients requesting letters of exemption to wearing face masks in various public settings.

The government guidance suggests that there is no need for you to provide evidence of exemption - it should be sufficient for someone to declare that they are eligible.

'Those who have an age, health or disability reason to not wear a face covering should not be routinely asked to provide any written evidence of this' - gov.uk

26/06/2020

The government has set out steps to relax shielding guidance. Watch this video to find out how these changes will affect you, and when

22/06/2020

If you are visiting the practice to attend a booked appointment, please remember to wear a face covering.

This could be a face mask 😷 or something as simple as a scarf 🧣- as long as it covers your nose and mouth, you're good to go

13/06/2020

It sounds a little repetitive but it is important to keep saying it; thank you for your continued patience and support during what has been and what continues to be a very difficult time for all – we know that we aren’t out of the woods just yet.

We are however pleased to be able to restart some elements of planned care – things like cervical screening appointments and clinics for those patients with long-term health conditions – and to reopen one of our buildings (to booked appointments only) that has been closed to the public since the start of the pandemic; Oakham Surgery.

To be able to do this, whilst following the local and national guidance to keep you and our team safe, there will still be times when, if you need to be seen face to face, you will be asked to travel to a building that you might not usually attend.

When you come to a building for an appointment, we would ask you to arrive no more than 5 -10 minutes before your appointment time and to attend alone or with no more than one other person if you need them. A member of our team will greet you at the door to ask you a couple of screening questions and to take your temperature.

To be clear:


We are open
Call us or go online
Stay safe

You can read the full update here: https://bit.ly/2XVo4JF