Torrington Health Centre

Torrington Health Centre

COVID – 19

16^th March 2020

Our priority is the safety and good health of all of our patients and staff. As part of our contingency planning for COVID-19 we are taking several steps to support this:

1. 1. IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT THAT IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE COVID-19, YOU DO NOT ATTEND THE SURGERY. PLEASE TELEPHONE NHS ‘111’.
2. eConsults – To reduce the number of face-to-face appointments we are encouraging patients to use the ‘eConsult’ forms. These can be completed via our website torringtonhc.co.uk (or Google ‘Torrington Health Centre’). If you use this form for a non-urgent health problem, you will receive a guaranteed response from us within 48 hours and often a lot sooner.
3. All other appointments – If your health problem cannot be managed with an eConsult, please call the Health Centre number ‘01805 622247’. The member of reception taking your call will ask you about your problem and then pass this information on to a doctor to call you back the same day. The doctor will call you to make a plan which might involve a prescription, an investigation (such as a blood test) or a face-to-face appointment.
4. High Bickington – Due to the importance of social distancing and decontaminating clinical areas, we have decided to stop face-to-face doctor and nurse consultations at High Bickington Surgery. The building will be open at the usual time for collection of prescriptions but consultations will be provided solely at Torrington Health Centre. We will reinstate the service at High Bickington as soon as it is safe and sensible to do so.

We understand that these circumstances present a very challenging situation for us all. We hope that you can bear with the above changes and can see that we are trying to provide a service as close to ‘normal’ as possible, given the circumstances.

If you suspect you may be experiencing symptoms of this please DO NOT VISIT THE SURGERY,

The NHS and Public Health England (PHE) are extremely well prepared for outbreaks of new infectious diseases. The NHS has put in place measures to ensure the safety of all patients and NHS staff while also ensuring services are available to the public as normal. The risk to the general public is moderate. If you have arrived back to the UK from mainland China, Thailand, Japan, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia or Macau within 14 days, follow the specific advice for returning travellers.

Call 111 now if you’ve been:

• to Wuhan or Hubei Province in China in the last 14 days (even if you do not have symptoms)
• to other parts of China, including Macau and Hong Kong, in the last 14 days and have a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath (even if it’s mild)
• to Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Republic of Korea or Malaysia in the last 14 days and have a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath (even if it’s mild)
• in close contact with someone with confirmed coronavirus

Do not go to a GP surgery, community pharmacy or hospital. Call 111, stay indoors and avoid close contact with other people.

Further information is available on nhs.uk.

Like the common cold, coronavirus infection usually occurs through (more…)