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Crich Medical Practice

OAKWELL DRIVE • CRICH • MATLOCK • DE4 5PB
TEL: 01773 852966 FAX: 01773 853919
www.crichmedicalpractice.co.uk

Dr Robert Smallman
Dr Bryan Morland
Dr Sarah Savage
Dr Yolanda Diez
Dr Jon Hickinbotham

Newsletter June 2012

Try to remember to book your appointment with the Practice Nurse if you are travelling and need some vaccinations at least six weeks before the date of your travel. More information is available on our website.

SICKNESS CERTIFICATES
You do not require a doctor’s sickness certificate for any illness lasting seven days or less. Your employer may however require you to complete a self-certification form (SC2) which is available from your employer or on the HMRC website.
Evidence that you are sick
If you are sick for more than seven days, your employer can ask you to give them some form of medical evidence to support payment of SSP (statutory sick pay). It is up to your employer to decide whether you are incapable of work. A medical certificate, now called a ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ (see below), from your doctor is strong evidence that you are sick and would normally be accepted, unless there is evidence to prove otherwise. You could also provide evidence from someone who is not a medical practitioner, e.g. a dentist. Your employer will decide whether or not this evidence is acceptable. If your employer has any doubts, they may still ask for a medical certificate from your GP.
Statement of Fitness for Work – ‘Fit Note’
The ‘fit note’ was introduced on 6 April 2010. With your employer’s support, the note will help you return to work sooner by providing more information about the effects of your illness or injury.
The practice is pleased to announce that it has been approved as a training practice for GP Registrars. A GP Registrar is a qualified doctor who is undertaking additional training to become a GP. Our first GP registrar will join the practice in August.
If you have an appointment for INR testing with the Nurse and find you cannot make that appointment, please let us know so we can make you a further appointment.
Can we please issue a further reminder for parents to try and dissuade their children from playing on surgery premises. It is not a playground and there are numerous cars and delivery lorries coming and going all day, so it is a rather dangerous place to choose to play. Parents – please do not be offended if we have cause to ask your child to leave the surgery grounds, we are thinking of their safety.
We know you may not wish to think about winter ailments, but this is just a reminder that we will NOT be sending out invitations to patients to come in for their flu vaccination in the autumn. If you are eligible to have a flu vaccination, please give us a call at the beginning of September and we will be able to offer you an appointment. The Flu Clinics will be running on some Saturday mornings in October.
If you are not eligible for the flu vaccination but still would like one, you can try ringing at the beginning of December to see if there are any stocks of the vaccine available.

APPOINTMENT BOOKING SYSTEM
We thought it would be helpful to clarify the booking system for seeing one of the doctors.
The practice runs a system whereby patients can book routine appointments up to six weeks in advance with the doctor of their choice, there may well be a wait of several days for one of these routine appointments.
We also run an on-call surgery for urgent appointments in both the morning and the afternoon so that patients who need to be seen on the day will have the opportunity to see a doctor. If a patient needs to be seen for an urgent appointment and is unable to wait until the next routine appointment then they will be fitted into one of these surgeries. The appointment will not necessarily be with their usual doctor and appointment time is strictly limited to ten minutes.
If the patient feels they can wait until the next day to be seen by a doctor they will be asked to contact the surgery the following morning when they will again be offered an appointment with the on-call doctor if no routine appointments are available.
The doctors also have three appointments in their evening surgery which will become available to book on the day of the appointment. These are kept back in case a doctor feels they need to see a patient earlier than their next available routine appointment. If these appointments have not been used by the doctor, they will become available for patients to book on the morning of the appointment, these may be at one of the branch surgeries.
Appointments can be booked from 8.00 a.m. in person at Crich or by telephoning any of the surgeries from 8.30 a.m.
Some practices do not allow patients to book routine appointments in advance but we feel that this is a better system for our patients and it works well within the practice.