Category: COVID-19

The latest communication today from NHS England will permit us to bring the Oxford vaccine out to GP practices, especially to help reduce travel for patients who are currently being invited in small numbers to Barnstaple leisure centre. All our staff are now vaccinated.

Once we have used our initial allocation in North Devon to vaccinate top priority Care Home residents and staff, we would therefore hope to be able to begin to vaccinate from Hartland Surgery before the end of January (lots of fingers crossed!)

Our current plan is to start a regular Thursday vaccination day, with as much vaccine as we are allowed! Our first group will be the over 80’s. We have nearly 200 of you!! (see our numbers below).

Please stay safe for just a few more weeks. We will contact you by SMS or email if possible, especially as the age groups get younger.

Here is a reminder of our priority lists from the government website. In brackets are our approximate numbers in each group.

1. residents in a care home for older adults and their carers (0)
2. all those 80 years of age and over (188) and frontline health and social care workers
3. all those 75 years of age and over (154)
4. all those 70 years of age (248) and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals (56)
5. all those 65 years of age and over (229)
6. all individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality (273)
7. all those 60 years of age and over (152)
8. all those 55 years of age and over (202)
9. all those 50 years of age and over (143)

Therefore if we could get 200 vaccines supplied a week, we could get first doses to all these important groups within around 8 weeks or 400 doses per week then 4 weeks.

And you will all require a second jab 8-12 weeks later. We are going to be busy, but this is fantastic news!

Just a quick update, unfortunately we will NOT be able to start doing Pfizer COVID vaccine until after Christmas, when we expect to begin small numbers from a shared hub in Barnstaple covering all of North Devon. We will contact you when we have vaccine available, starting with those aged over 80.

The complex cold chain requirements mean we have to work within a shared hub where the Pfizer vaccine packs can be thawed (1000 doses at a time) and must then be given within 3 days.

We hope and expect in the new year the pace of vaccination will rapidly accelerate, especially if the easier to store Oxford vaccine is approved which may  be available for us to give from our practices.

An update from Dr Sam Tapsell:

Following a fever on Monday night, I had a swab on Tuesday morning which today came back positive for COVID. I will therefore be working from home returning on Thu 3 December (10 days isolation). I’m hopeful that I’m having a mild case, as my temperature seems to be better today, with just a sore throat and slight cough along with feeling tired.

Dr Ruth Tapsell had a negative swab taken at the same time, but will need to isolate for 2 weeks and will therefore be working from home, returning on Tuesday 8 December 2020.

Dr Mike Trowbridge is therefore “holding the fort”, but as the only doctor at the surgery he is working flat out, and your patience will be appreciated.

We dont think this case has come from contact within Hartland surgery, but obviously we will be on our guard in the coming days.

With a vaccine hopefully starting within a matter of weeks, please take utmost care to protect those most at risk. And especially if you have diabetes or are overweight, try to cut your sugar and starch intake. This seems like the best way to protect yourself from getting a more serious illness if you do catch it and giving you confidence to get back to normal life in the springtime and beyond.

Following our staff COVID outbreak, we are pleased to report no further cases or symptoms within our staff during the last 10 days. Affected staff are making a good recovery. We are therefore cautiously returning to a “normal” service during this week.

There are rising COVID cases both locally and nationally so we are still trying to avoid face to face contact where this is safe to do so. We will continue with “collection times” at 12-1 and 5-6pm for prescriptions.

We will also have some members of the team working remotely from home and some other measures to make our workplace as safe as we can for our staff.

We are grateful for support we’ve had from other practices, for example some patients attended Bideford Medical Centre for urgent blood testing last week.

Thank you all for your patience while we catch up and please keep looking out for each other during this winter.

Over the past few days, we have had a number of staff who have tested positive for COVID.

If you develop any of the following you should arrange a test through the government COVID website:

1. A high temperature
2. A new, continuous cough
3. Loss or change to your sense of smell or taste

Remember that any one of these would be a reason for you to get tested.

We will therefore postpone all face to face contacts with a bare minimum telephone or email service in place to protect our patients. We also need to avoid staff working within the practice building where possible to prevent further spread. If your problem is not urgent, could you please give us 2 weeks to get the surgery back towards a more normal service.

If possible please contact us by email or eConsult through our practice website, and we can email or ring you back if required.

Some friends and family have asked us about the online “plandemic” video which has been forwarded on social media. This video suggests the Coronavirus epidemic is manmade, and designed to allow profit from vaccine makers.

Having watched the entire film, Its complete nonsense, but mixed with a sprinkle of truth to make it believable. I am worried about how it will affect people who are already worried enough about this serious pandemic.

There have also been stories suggesting COVID is caused by 5G next generation phone technology.

And even a few weeks ago wembley stadium had to deny they were turning the stadium into a giant oven to cook lasagna.

So to all our patients, please stay safe, trust and follow national advice and please don’t forward along any utter nonsense which is sent to you in social media. Some worried people are losing their minds.

We are trying to respond to being a “socially distant” GP service by using modern technology where possible to still provide you with safe access to our GP services.

This means we are doing a lot of our work by:

• telephone
• email
• text message (SMS)
• video to your mobile phone

We will also be trying an online consultation system called eConsult.  We will “Go Live” on Monday 4th May through the link on our website. It will ask you a series questions and this will try and provide us enough information to respond directly to your request where possible. It will also try and offer online advice from trusted NHS advice websites to help you.

We will aim to provide a response by the end of  next working day and sooner if possible. If you have a mobile phone, we will prefer to respond by SMS message as this seems to link up well in our “back end”, but we can email you if you prefer.

We are especially hoping this will keep the practice and community safe when we have visitors later into the summer months, who will be wanting to escape to Devon from the lockdown for a well deserved holiday. If we can provide some forgotten medication or provide medical advice without bringing them into the surgery, then everyone should be safer.