News

Changes to the way we review our diabetic patients

Diabetes Monitoring

The way we manage our patients with Type 2 Diabetes is changing.

Over the past couple of years our practice has seen >25% increase in the number of patients we are managing with Type 2 Diabetes and this figure is set to rise. Therefore, we have had to implement changes and adapt to new ways of working to ensure everyone can be reviewed safely and efficiently.

From now on, you will be invited by text message or letter for a routine review once a year; this will usually be in your birth month. At this appointment a health care assistant will obtain your bloods, BP, height and weight, ask you some questions about your lifestyle and may complete your diabetic foot screening if indicated.

The Practice Nurse team will then review this information and if they need to discuss any aspect of your care, someone from the surgery will call you to arrange this.

Within healthcare there is a move towards supported self management. We are promoting the use of the national online patient service ‘My Diabetes, My Way’ (MDMY), registration details can be found in the Fife Diabetes Directory booklet.

MDMY allows you to view your results, as well as comments left by the practice nurse.

You will no longer be required to routinely attend for 6 monthly diabetic monitoring bloods. We will assess everyone individually and advise if you need to attend out with your annual review, if clinically indicated. Someone from the practice will call you if this is required and it will also be recorded in the comments section of MDMY.

Text messaging

We are now sending invites for our chronic disease recall by text message if we have a mobile phone number available for a patient. If you are our patient, have a birth month of January, February or March and are normally called into the surgery for an annual check you should have recieved a text message or a letter in the last 3 months

Trialling text messaging

We are now sending invites for our chronic disease recall by text message if we have a mobile phone number available for a patient. If you are our patient, have a birth month of January, February or March and are normally called into the surgery for an annual check you should have recieved a text message or a letter.

Appointment System from Monday, 15th July, 2024

We have reviewed our appointment system and the following changes will take effect from Monday, 15th July, 2024:

Minor illness triage: Please call the practice between 8.00AM and 12.00PM if you have a minor illness.  Calls received after 12PM will be asked to call back at 8.00AM the follow day or to call 111 after 6PM if it cannot wait until then.

Minor illness includes things like coughs and colds, sore throats and urine infections.  These can often be managed by your community pharmacy and advice is also available from NHS Inform website.

Minor illness calls will be dealt with by one of our Advanced Nurse Practitioners.  

This will allow us to maximise the number of GP appointments available to book each day.

Medical emergencies will be dealt with throughout the day.  If you feel your condition is life threatening you should dial 999.

GP appointments:  you should call from 8AM for an on the day appointment.  We will advertise on our Facebook page each day when we have reached capacity for our GP appointments that day.  

We now have a limited number of GP bookable in advance appointments which will be offered in our extended hours surgeries on a Tuesday morning and Thursday evening.

All other appointment types:  you should call after 10AM to book an appointment in advance for a Practice Nurse, Phlebotomist, Midwife, First Contact Physio etc.

Results:  you should call between 2PM and 5PM.