After two weeks we are settling into a new routine in General Practice. This is still an evolving situation but we are managing the vast majority of consultations via phone or video and so minimising the need for patients to leave their home during the lockdown. This has been really helped by the fantastic attitude of our patients and all deserve a big “Thank-you” for making this huge challenge easier to manage.

The changes we introduced last Monday were primarily to protect patients from the risk of disease spread. This has meant a drastic reduction in patients passing through the surgery and as a result very little income over the counter. A lot of patients have asked to arrange online payments and this would be much appreciated to keep the practice running. 

The details for online payment are;

account – 02 0348 0068532 000

reference – your date of birth

We are sending out txt reminders with these details too

We have seen a dramatic drop in ACC claims with people under lockdown not being injured at sport or work. This is a good thing but has dried up another revenue stream that the practice relies on to keep functioning. We are hoping for some stop gap payments from the Ministry to tide us through this time of increased expenditure and wages and decreased cashflow but this remains an area of uncertainty at present.

This week we have continued with our influenza vaccination clinics. These remain constrained by delivery of vaccines and we still have patients eligible for free vaccine (over 65 or under 65 with certain chronic conditions) that still need to be vaccinated. We have had an excellent response at short notice to clinics notified via the website and FaceBook and will continue to advertise clinics this way as vaccine deliveries occur.

With the increase in COVID-19 testing that is happening we are likely to see an increase in case numbers for a while yet. This will finally give us an indication of the degree of community spread and hopefully in a week or two the effect of the lockdown will be known. An ideal situation will see daily case numbers drop but we will have to wait and see. It has been very disheartening to see the media coverage of lockdown rules being flouted. If the people doing this could fully understand how ignorant and selfish they were being they would feel embarrassed. There is no second chance with this. We need to do it right the first time if we are to have any chance of success.