COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS

If you have symptoms associated with coronavirus including a new continuous cough and a high temperature, you are advised to stay at home for 7 days. Do not book a GP appointment or attend your GP Practice.

If your symptoms are serious, or get worse, NHS 111 has an online coronavirus service that can tell you if you need further medical help and advise you what to do.

Only call 111 direct if you cannot go online, or are advised to do so by the online service.

For the latest COVID19 advice please visit www.nhs.uk/coronavirus.

To reduce your chances of catching COVID-19 and reduce pressure on your local GP practice during this busy time, appointments will be carried out over the phone unless there is a clinical need for you to come into the practice. This will help minimise risk while continuing to ensure people get the care and advice they need.

Like the common cold, coronavirus infection usually occurs through close contact with a person with novel coronavirus via cough and sneezes or hand contact.

A person can also catch the virus by touching contaminated surfaces if they do not wash their hands. Testing of suspected coronavirus cases is carried out in line with strict guidelines. This means that suspected cases are kept in isolation, away from public areas of GP surgeries, pharmacies and hospitals and returned home also in isolation.

Any equipment that comes into contact with suspected cases are thoroughly cleaned as appropriate. Specific guidance has also been shared with NHS staff to help safeguard them and others.

Patients can be reassured that their safety is a top priority, and are encouraged to attend all appointments as usual.

Everyone is being reminded to follow Public Health England advice to:

Always carry tissues with you and use them to catch your cough or sneeze. Then bin the tissue, and wash your hands, or use a sanitiser gel.
Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after using public transport. Use a sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FROM YORK MEDICAL GROUP 19th March 2020

Our Monkgate, Water Lane, Woodthorpe and York St John Surgeries are now shut. Please do not visit the surgeries to collect or drop of prescriptions.
York Medical Pharmacy is still open for their patients. If you are one of their patients and have query please contact them on 01904 794115.
To reduce your chances of catching COVID-19 and reduce pressure on your local GP practice during this busy time, appointments will be carried out over the phone unless there is a clinical need for you to come into the practice. This will help minimise risk while continuing to ensure people get the care and advice they need.
If you had a pre-booked GP appointments this will now be become a telephone appointment. The GP will contact you on the day either in the morning if it was a AM appointment or the afternoon if a PM appointment. Please do not come down to the surgery.
If you need same day care our service is still running. Please call as normal and a GP will advise the best course of action.
All pre-booked Nurse Appointments have been cancelled for now and patients have been contacted. If you need a Nurse appointment for the following please call the surgery on the day to book the appointment. Vitamin B12, Testosterone, Zoladex, Pneumovax/shingles vaccinations, Baby Vaccinations and Pre-School Boosters, Simple Dressings and removal of sutures/clips, Complex Wound Care, Whooping vaccination, INR Star.
Hearing aid batteries will need to be requested from audiology on 01904 726741 and your batteries will be posted out to you
Prescriptions - please do not visit the surgery to drop off a prescription. Please sign up for the NHS App or ring the surgery and verbally sign up for online services via the query lines. If you cannot access these services please can you post your prescription to the surgery. Please make sure nominate a pharmacy for your prescription to be sent to electronically.
Doors at all surgeries will be locked and will only be opened for those patients that have appointments, this is to keep staff safe so we can keep surgeries working.
All fit/sick notes will automatically be posted for the foreseeable future.

We apologise for the inconvenience these actions will cause but we are working in unprecedented times.

NEW TELEPHONE NUMBER 01904 439100

" Trust our family to look after your family "

Appointments

Access the online appointment system

01904 439100

Please read our Appointment guide here

Ring the number listed above to book an appointment. You can contact any site to book appointments at any surgery. YSJ Surgery appointments are only for York St John Students

You can also book in person or use the Online Services, Click here form more information. If you are calling from a telephone box please say and we will ring you back. Please also tell us immediately if your call is an emergency

Patients with urgent problems will be seen as soon as possible.
If your condition is non-urgent, you can expect to see a GP within currently three working weeks, though you may have to wait longer if you want to see a particular GP. Nurses based in our practice treat patients for a wide range of common conditions and you can expect to see one within two working weeks.
Consultations take place throughout the day. Normal surgery appointments are NOW every 14 minutes and are for one person and one problem only; please let the receptionist know if you require a longer appointment.
Patients can be seen at any of our surgeries (ie Acomb, Monkgate) as all our medical records are computerised, so patient information is available to any doctor/nurse at any site.
Please tell us if you want someone to accompany you during an examination, or a private room to discuss any matters.

Appointment Punctuality

Please click here to read our Appointment punctuality(lateness) policy.

Appointment Booking from Tuesday 24th September 2019

To ensure you see the right clinician at the right time for your condition we are making some changes to our appointment system and our phone system. This project is called “Right First Time”.

We believe our patients generally know how quickly they need to be seen. From mid-September, our PCCs will ask you how quickly you feel you need to be seen along with some questions about your condition. The appointment choices will be:

Same Day Care
Care within 2-5 days (Soon)
Care after 5 days (Routine)

The information you give, along with our Care Navigation Framework will help our PCCs direct you to the most appropriate care.

York Medical Group’s new “Honest Day” pilot is now live. We have created a more manageable working day for our GPs which includes time for visiting, staff interruptions, refreshment and clinical admin as well as a manageable number of patient contacts. The previous GP working day was not sustainable, leading to high levels of GP sickness and resignations.
For this reason, please bear in mind that if you have a patient query, your GP may not be able to answer your query immediately. The Patient Care Co-Ordinators (PCCs) have allocated time each day when they can get advice from the GP and answer any queries.

Making Phone Bookings from Tuesday 24th September 2019

To ensure we can answer Same Day Care requests promptly and allow for the extra time taken for you to answer the PCCs questions we will need to separate Same Day Care calls from Routine Calls.

For Same Day Care Appointments:

We will have TWO sessions each working day (Mon-Fri) allocated especially for Same Day Care bookings.
Please ring between: 8:45 - 10:15 for morning bookings or 14:00 - 15:00 for afternoon bookings.

A Same Day Care Clinician will be with the PCCs taking your call. The PCC will liaise with the Same Day Care Clinician who will assess your case and give guidance for the most appropriate clinician for you to see. This twice a day, Same Day Care booking service, is available between these times only.

In an Emergency please ring 999 or 111

For Routine Appointments:

Please phone between: 8:00 - 8:45, 10:15 - 14:00, 15:00 - 18:00

For Queries:

For all non-appointment related queries please ring between:
9:00 - 11:00
13:00 - 17:30

Routine Appointments

The changes to our clinical team have enabled YMG to offer more routine appointments to our patients across all sites. We have also been able to increase appointment times to 14 minutes to allow clinicians to provide the best care for our patients and complete any necessary admin work associated with your appointment.

Please note if you have an emergency that is life threatening, you will need the Emergency Department – call 999

Practice Nurses

Our practice nurses also hold regular surgeries with 15-minute appointments. Please note that not all the nurses can perform all tasks.

Cancellations & DNAs (Did Not Attend)

If you cannot attend an appointment for any reason please let us know in good time in order that we can give the slot to someone else. If you missed your appointment without letting us know, a DNA will go onto your record. If this happens a considerable amount of time you will be removed from a patient list and asked to register with another surgery. Missing appointments wastes a considerable amount of time for all staff and means that patients end up waiting longer than necessary. It also means that your appointment could have been given to another patient. We are a busy practice and appointments fill up quickly, so please show some consideration and inform us if you cannot make your appointment so we can give your slot to someone else.