SSP Health is the largest provider of primary care GP services in the North West of England. SSP Health’s mission statement is to deliver outstanding clinical services, responsive to patient needs, using traditional and innovative methods, encompassing a health and social care approach to enhance the quality of patients’ lives. For more information on our practices or SSP Health, please contact our head office. You can use our online consultation service at most of our practices to give you faster and even better care. We know that you don’t just need medical support during practice hours and that you may want to seek advice at any time of day. Our online consultation systems give you 24-hour access to a wealth of health advice, self-care tips, and guidance on what your next steps should be. Plus, you can submit request forms directly to the practice for review if you feel you need further guidance or to see a GP or another clinician. You will be able to ask about lots of other things, too, such as test results, medical reports, and letters, or request a sick note. Any patient can use the online consultation service from a phone, tablet, or computer at any time of the day or night. This allows us to choose the best course of action – we may phone with advice, arrange an appointment for you or prescribe something for you. You can access online consultation through your practice web page or, if you have an account, a health app. Benefits of online consultation are:
• Round the clock advice: Access a wealth of health advice at any time of day or night.
• Less time on the phone: Submit your form online so you spend less time waiting in busy phone queues.
• Accurate medical advice: Receive tailored advice and information based on your symptoms.
• Clinically approved information: All the advice and information available through online consultation is clinically approved and provided by medical professionals. ELECTRONIC PRESCRIPTION SERVICE (EPS)
If you get regular prescriptions the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) may be able to save you time by saving you unnecessary trips to your GP. EPS allows your GP or another clinician to send your prescription directly to your chosen pharmacy without a paper prescription. If you collect your repeat prescriptions from your GP, you will not have to visit your practice to pick up your paper prescription. Instead, your GP will send it electronically to the place you choose, saving you time. You will have more choice about where to get your medicines from because they can be collected from a pharmacy near to where you live, work or shop. You may not have to wait as long at the pharmacy as there will be time for your repeat prescriptions to be ready before you arrive. Please speak to your nominated pharmacist to activate your EPS. Yes, if you have a stable condition and you:
• Don’t want to go to your GP practice every time to collect your repeat prescription.
• Collect your medicines from the same place most of the time or use a prescription collection service now. This service is not suitable for all patients. It may not be suitable if you:
• Don’t get prescriptions very often.
• Pick up your medicines from different places. You need to choose a place for your GP practice to electronically send your prescription to. This is called nomination. This could be a pharmacy local to your home or work address. Ask any pharmacy or a member of the reception team to add your nomination for you. You don’t need a computer to do this. Can I change my nomination or cancel it and get a paper prescription? Yes you can. If you don’t want your prescription to be sent electronically, tell your GP. If you want to change or cancel your nomination, speak to your nominated pharmacist or dispensing appliance contractor. It is important to tell them before your next prescription is due or your prescription may be sent to the wrong place. Is EPS reliable, secure and confidential? Your electronic prescription will be seen by the same people in GP practices, pharmacies and NHS prescription payment and fraud agencies that see your paper prescription now. Sometimes dispensers may see that you have nominated another dispenser. For example, if you forget who you have nominated and ask them to check or, if you have nominated more than one dispenser. Dispensers will also see all the items on your reorder slip if you are on repeat prescriptions. Benefits of EPS:
• More efficient and convenient for patients and staff.
• Reduces paper.
• Safer, faster and more efficient.
• Patients don't have to visit their GP for a prescription.
• Patients won't have a paper prescription to lose. For more information visit http://www.hscic.gov.uk/epspatients or your pharmacy. HELP US TO IDENTIFY CARERS
If you have a partner, relative, friend or neighbour who relies on you and you are providing valuable unpaid care and support for them, please notify your GP practice and we will be able to add you to our carers register. Although caring for someone can be very rewarding, it can also be tiring and stressful or make it harder to look after your own health and wellbeing and so for this reason we would like to make a note on your medical records that you are a carer. This will allow us to provide you with additional information and support. Often people do not see themselves as a carer and are totally unaware of the additional care and resources available to them both as part of their GP practice but also externally via referral to a carers centre. Please contact your practice reception who will be happy to advise you further. THIS PRACTICE SUPPORTS NHS RESEARCH
Our practices work with the NHS National Institute for Health Research, to promote research and offer our patients the opportunity to take part in ethically approved research studies. Research has always been at the heart of NHS, mainly through hospitals; however, research will become standard practice within GP surgeries. Research allows the NHS to continually improve treatments and discover the best ways to prevent, diagnose and mange illness. Research also helps to understand how best to focus NHS resources. As a patient, you may at times now be offered the opportunity to participate in medical research. This practice is involved in research in several ways, which may involve providing information from the practice database for a research organisation or we may be a site where research activity is undertaken. We may also identify that you are suitable for a research study at one of our other sites. For more information on this and NHS research, please see these useful websites…
https://www.hra.nhs.uk/information-about-patients/
www.ukctg.nihr.ac.uk
www.researchforthefuture.org
FARSITE
Our practices are signed up to FARSITE, which provides a safe, convenient and effective way for GP practices to control the recruitment of their patients into clinical research, whilst allowing NHS-based researchers to run complex and powerful searches over population level health record data. All data is anonymous. For more details contact: www.nweh.co.uk/products/farsite
RCGP RESEARCH AND SURVEILLANCE CENTRE (RSC)
Our practices are contributing pseudonymised data for national research and surveillance. This data enables continuous monitoring of infections and diseases in the community and is used in ethically approved research. The RCGP RSC is the main source of information for Public Health England (PHE) and helps with prediction and management of flu outbreaks and pandemics. Providing pseudonymised data does not affect patients, their care or privacy, however, if you no longer wish to allow your information to be used, please speak to our Practice Manager. THIS PRACTICE CONTRBUTES TO THE CLINICAL PRACTICE RESEARCH DATALINK (CPRD)
Information in patient records is important for medical research to develop new treatments and test the safety of medicines. Our practices support medical research by sending some of the information from patient records to the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). CPRD is a government organisation that provides anonymised patient data for research to improve public health. You cannot be identified from the information sent to CPRD. If you do not want anonymised information from your patient record to be used in research you can opt out by speaking to your doctor. For more information about how your data is used visit www.cprd.com/public
HOW CAN THE PUBLIC OPT-OUT? The public can change their national data opt-out choice via www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters
or by calling the NHS Digital Contact Centre on 0300 303 5678.
