Far too many patients still at risk from influenza - Scottish practice showing us up!

Our computer system speeds up the flu clinic and improves safety

We are now providing the flu shot FREE to ALL patients.  Walk-in weekdays from 10am-2pm (10am to 6pm on Thursdays).

We have a lot of work to do after a disappointing start to our free flu clinics for our at-risk patients . Only

This is shockingly bad.   Strachur Medical Practice, our Scottish sister practice is miles better at this with 95% of their Heart Disease, 100% of their Chronic Bronchitis and 100% of their Diabetic patients vaccinated in 2009.  

It means that the great majority of our elderly and chronic illness patients are at higher risk of catching influenza and dying this year.  This is just not good enough.

We want to vaccinate at least 75% of our at-risk patients.  This is based on the World Health Organization recommendations.  You can watch how we are doing via this page and the tracker on our home page.  They update with live data every 60 seconds.

We're now going to extend our access to free flu shots:

1. To avoid confusion, flu shots are now free for all patients.   
2. We are going to run a drop in flu shot clinic every weekday from 10am to 2pm
3. We are going to run an evening flu shot clinic from 2pm-6pm every Thursday.
4. Our nursing team are going to be chasing up our at-risk patients.  

Our Scottish sister practice is way ahead of us.  Come on Canadians!  Don't let the Scots show you up.  You can do better!

New Schedule

Our new schedule is now up and running.

Rapid Access Clinic now open
We've moved the appointments around to reduce the waiting times.   We've spaced out the medical appointments because they had the longest waits on the day, and we've started our Rapid Access Clinics for people who just need two or three minutes with the doctor.  The Rapid Access Clinic runs weekdays from 10am till 11am.

Reduced waiting times
We trialled the new schedule last week, and on Friday (when most of the bumps had been ironed out!) the average waiting time for patients was down to 17 minutes.  That's a great improvement from the average of around 1 hour that we had before we moved to the new premises, and the average of 35 minutes that we had with the old schedule.  We continue to be able to offer appointments usually within a few days.

Our waiting times (both on the day, and for booking ahead) are displayed on our home page.

New opening hours - evening clinic on Thursdays
A couple of changes to hours as well.  This is mainly due to the fact that we have had to postpone having a second doctor.  The front desk will be open only from 10am until 2pm daily.  We will also only be answering the phones between these hours. 

We will now be offering appointments every weekday, but only between 10am and 2pm (except the Treatment Room Nurse who will remain open from 8.20am until 4pm).  For patients who find it hard to take time off work, we will be starting an evening clinic running to 6pm on Thursdays from next month.

We're really pleased with this new schedule, and we hope it will make accessing care even easier for our patients.