LAWLEY MEDICAL PRACTICE
Telephone 01952 560011
Fax 01952 5015 02
www.lawleymedical.co.uk
Summer Newsletter
Edition
Welcome to Lawley Medical Practice’s Newsletter. These will be released quarterly to try
and provide patient’s of Lawley Medical Practice with information about changes and
anything new happening at the practice.
Online Appointments
You are now able to book routine appointments
with your doctor online, which allows you to
manage your appointments online, at home or at
work. You can view, book and cancel your
appointments on the patient access website.
There is even an app you can download on your
phone. If you are interested in using this then
please ask at reception to print off your unique
registration details which explains what to do next.
Late Night Appointments
We offer late night appointments every Monday up
to 8pm with a Doctor, Nurse and Dr Puiu who
operates the Women’s Health Clinic. These are
pre-booked appointments and the telephone lines
will not be operational after 6pm.
Age UK Care Navigator Service
The Care Navigator (CN) service is a new
service which provides a listening ear to any
patient 65 and over who may be experiencing
any number of issues in their day to day life.
This could be feeling lonely, having recently
been bereaved, have worries about heating
costs, difficulty managing with cleaning and
shopping at home, needing equipment to help
with tasks in the house, wanting to do more
socially or having difficulty getting out and
about with transport.
The majority of patients they see are not aware
of the many support services available to them
in their local community which can make a big
difference to their quality of life. The CN will
typically spend an hour with a patient, identify
area/s of need, inform them of services
Practice Update
available, support them in accessing if needed,
We are pleased to announce that we have 2 new
and continue this support on a short term basis
apprentices working in reception, Jessica and Molly until the patient's situation has improved. This
who join our other Mollie who started last
service is therefore a signposting role and is
December. Please be understanding if they are
not that of a health visitor or social worker.
unsure of anything and need to ask a more
experienced member of staff for assistance.
There is no set referral criteria for the
service, except that patients must be over the
We have also employed an Office Manager,
age of 65 and have given their consent for a
Denise Hallett, who is experienced working in other referral to be made. As many people are very
medical practices, and she will look after the
wary of an unknown caller, a referral would
reception team.
also need a current telephone number, as the
CN will telephone once the referral has been
Our lovely Practice Nurse Maggie will be retiring
made. In some instances information can
from nursing in November. A card and collection for simply be provided over the phone, in others
her will be in reception from October if you would
an appointment at the surgery or a home visit
like to contribute or send your best wishes.
will be arranged. If you are interested in this
service, then please ask to be referred.
LAWLEY MEDICAL PRACTICE
Telephone 01952 560011
Fax 01952 5015 02
www.lawleymedical.co.uk
Telephone Consultations with the GP – Explained
It is often the case that a patient wants to deal with a problem by telephone, or (if a suitable
appointment isn't immediately available) that we need to call you back to discuss your problem and
agree how best to help you – this may include creating an appropriate appointment especially for you
if needed. We will always see you same day if medically necessary, but we prefer to discuss things by
telephone first, rather than have a building and car park full of patients without appointments
Please help us to help you by ensuring your telephone contact details are correct, your telephone is
switched on, and you give our staff as much information as you can about the reason for the the call.
Please also only use telephone calls for things that actually need to be discussed - almost all
prescription requests, sick notes, and other administration matters do not need a same day response,
and can be dealt with by us as an admin task (where we may or may not find we need to telephone
you). Often if you have given the staff enough information, they may be able to sort out your problem,
or they can send us a message and we can respond. This instead of a telephone call helps us to help
you.
For routine calls, we normally try to ring between morning and afternoon surgery, but it can be later. If
we try to call and get no answer we will leave a message (if we can) but will not normally try again
after 2pm. If we have tried and failed to reach you we will make a note of this, so that the staff can see
we tried to make the call. If you have missed our call and you still need help or advice, then do call
back and the staff will place you on the routine call list for the next day, or (if it is urgent) pass your
problem to the duty doctor.
If you feel your call is urgent, please tell the staff the reason for your call - the duty doctor can then
make a judgment about how urgently to call you back/. Please note, that if you do not give the staff a
reason for your call then you may not get a call that day. Please remember that whenever we do
something urgently it may be delaying the care of other patients, so we do need to decide which
problems are most pressing and we use the information of what the call is about to make this
decision,...if your problem isn't important enough for you to tell our staff what it is, it isn't urgent.
Please do say if you want to speak to a particular doctor, or have times where calls are more
convenient - we will try to accommodate your wishes for where we can for routine calls, but this may
not always be possible if we are in consultations at a specific time when you want a call. Urgent calls
are normally dealt with by the 'duty doctor' who has allocated time for this work.
Information folders in reception
The practice has two information folders in reception: One contains all the details on the plasma
screen, and the other includes various Information Sheets and a description of a ‘Day in the Life’ of
GPs and Reception staff. Please do give us any feedback on these or make suggestions for any
further items you would like included.