If you have been referred to a Portsmouth hospital, you can now check the status of the waiting time by contacting the hospital direct. This means you do not need to wait on the surgery telephone line for our secretarial or reception team for an update on your referral.
Telephone: 023292 681700
Email: MyPlannedCare@porthosp.nhs.uk
If you’ve had a sleep problem for more than a month, then now is the time to tackle it. Don’t let sleep problems ruin your life, let us help you today. Our clinically validated sleep improvement programme is available on the NHS and privately, and you self refer by using this link:
Request NHS access to Sleepstation
For further information on the service please visit: https://www.sleepstation.org.uk/
Available to those eligible from 1st September 2024
From 1st September 2024, those who turn 75 and those aged 75 to 79 will be eligible for a free, one-off vaccine to protect them from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV is an infectious disease of the airways and lungs.
RSV infection often causes symptoms like a cold, including:
It can also make you become wheezy or short of breath and lead to pneumonia and other life-threatening conditions. There is no specific treatment, and most infections will get better by themselves. Every year thousands of older adults need hospital care for RSV, and some of them will die. RSV can be more severe in people with medical conditions such as heart or lung disease or a weakened immune system. RSV infection is common in young children but is most serious for small babies and for older people.
Eligibility
Everyone turning 75 years old on or after the 1 September 2024 will be offered a single dose of RSV vaccine. This is because older adults are more at risk of serious complications from RSV. You can still get the vaccine up to the day before you turn 80.
For the first year of the campaign, the vaccine will also be offered to those who are already aged 75 to 79 years on 1 September 2024 as part of a catch-up programme. If you are not yet 75 you will be invited for your vaccination once you turn 75. All pregnant women who are at least 28 weeks pregnant will be offered the vaccine via their midwife.
For individuals younger than 75 or 80 years or over you will not be eligible for the vaccine in accordance with JCVI guidance. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is an expert scientific advisory committee which advises UK Government on vaccination and immunisation matters. The government then responds to the advice of the JCVI and makes decisions on eligibility, the partnership have no control over the age criteria set.
Invitations
We will send you an SMS text message inviting you book your vaccine with a link to our online booking system.
We will invite those most vulnerable to book their vaccinations first and this will be in November. We will then invite patients in age order from 75-79. We envisage that those aged 79 will be contacted by the end of December at the latest.
Housebound patients will receive a home visit for their vaccination by early October from our home visiting service. This service is purely for patients who are physically unable to leave their home.
You can self refer to speak to a counsellor by contacting italk. italk can help with depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD and phobias, stress as well wellbeing help and support. Please call italk on 023 8038 3920 to arrange an appointment, or see the links below for more information:
https://www.italk.org.uk/
https://www.italk.org.uk/self-referral/
Ready to lose weight? Hampshire’s Gloji or Slimming World can help!
Click here for FREE access to the best weight loss programmes, fully funded for Hampshire residents by Hampshire County Council. Click here to learn more:
https://hampshire.gloji.org.uk/
If you are over 55 years of age, need a hearing test and are not already on an NHS hearing pathway, and think you might benefit from free NHS hearing aids, you can now self-refer to the local Audiology service
In Portsmouth and South East area, Community Audiology service is provided by Scrivens Hearing Care.
There is no need to contact your GP, but please contact the chosen Scrivens Hearing Care Clinic directly.
You can also attend your local Scrivens Hearing branch for all aftercare and any additional assistance required. Scrivens Hearing branches are open six days a week and offer flexible service to meet the individual needs of each patient.
| Online Booking: https://scrivens.com/find-a-branch/ Customer Services: 0800 027 5102 Email: customercare@scrivens.com |
| St Mary’s Treatment Centre Milton Road Milton Portsmouth PO3 6DW Tel: 0800 027 5102 |
| Scrivens, Havant 3 West Street Havant Hampshire PO9 1EH Tel: 02392 483445 |
| Scrivens Gosport 103 High Street Gosport Hampshire PO12 1DS Tel: 02392 581719 |
| Scrivens, Waterlooville 6 The Precinct (The Boulevard) London Rd Waterlooville Hampshire PO7 7DT Tel: 02392 262054 |
GPs are often asked to make Mental Capacity Assessments for patients. These assessments can be requested for a variety of different reasons. As GPs it is an essential part of our role that we are able to perform capacity assessments which relate to decisions regarding medical investigations, treatment and care. However capacity assessments relating to overall welfare, finances and property are often more complex and sit outside our expertise.
The level of risk and responsibility linked to capacity assessments can be extremely high. Decisions such as whether someone’s house is sold or how their life savings are spent can depend on capacity assessments. It is therefore essential that adequate time and attention is dedicated to these assessments. It is also essential that those carrying out these assessments for legal purposes are highly trained and experienced in this area.
Legal capacity assessments do not fall within the NHS duties of GPs. Some GPs do agree to perform these assessments privately at a fee, but many others feel the risks of doing so are too high or that the time needed to perform an adequate assessment is not available to them. There are other professionals who can perform mental capacity assessments including solicitors and psychiatrist.
As a surgery we do not feel we have the capacity to offer Mental Capacity Assessments for legal purposes for our patients. To do so would require significant resources being diverted from our core duties as a health care provider. It would also pose a significant legal and financial risk to our GPs. We feel there are other professionals available with more appropriate training, legal protection and expertise who can perform these assessments.
We realise that this practice policy may cause some inconvenience to our patients but hope you can understand that our priority must be to our core NHS duties as a health care provider. If, in the future, the funding crisis in General Practice is adequately addressed by government we may find ourselves able to reconsider our position.
Minor surgical procedures are regularly performed by both Dr Cousins and Dr Tan
Procedures include joint/muscular injections.
We offer Annual reviews to patients in the month of their Birthday with the Practice Nurse.
We offer Annual reviews to patients in the month of their Birthday with the Practice Nurse.
