December 2009

CPR Training

Your practice team keeps up to date on cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with an annual training session. This year's event was on Wednesday 23rd December.

Paul Quinn, currently a 3rd year medical student in Lancaster University, was helping in the office that day and found himself playing the role of the collapsed patient in this exercise.
Thanks for the help Paul!

November 2009

Practice Meetings

The practice team meet monthly to share learning and discuss any issues affecting the practice. The common room is well equipped with a pull down projection screen and an LCD projector. An Internet connection lets us put up guidelines from national bodies such as NICE for discussion by the group.

The photo shows Drs Quinn & Pope arriving for a practice meeting.

Nurse Caroline has moved on

Nurse Caroline Mellon has left us. She has moved to a job with more hours and different responsibilities at a practice in Oxton. Caroline has been a valuable member of the Blackheath team and we wish her all the best in her new position.

Swine Flu Vaccination

Our stock of 500 doses of Swine Flu (H1N1) vaccines has arrived. The vaccine has been supplied to us in 10-dose vials which restricts our ability to give it opportunistically to patients attending the surgery for other reasons. For this reason we will be running special Swine Flu vaccination clinics.

All practice staff received the vaccination. Nurse Paula Shanahan got the job of giving Dr Quinn his Swine Flu vaccination.

New F2 Doctor

Flight Lieutenant Dr Amy Randle has now finished her time in the practice and has returned to work in Arrowe Park Hospital. Dr Louise Brockbank has now joined us for the next four months.

NICE & Preventing Pre-Diabetes

Dr Quinn has joined a NICE group looking at the prevention of pre-diabetes.
Pre-diabetes includes impaired fasting glycaemia and impaired glucose tolerance.

The work will involve committee work in London for a day every six weeks or so. The group is expected to report in June 2011.

October 2009

2009's Influenza Vaccination Programme

Our stock of standard "seasonal" influenza vaccinations has arrived. This year is going to be complicated as patients requiring vaccination should also have the Swine Flu (H1N1) vaccination as well.
All patients who have supplied us either an email address or a mobile 'phone number will have received a message telling them that the vaccinations are in stock, allowing them to book quickly for their vaccination.

May 2009

New Extension

Our new extension is now finished giving us two new additional consulting rooms and and doubling the size of our common room to give us a very useful meeting room.

The meeting room accommodates 10-12 comfortably and is well equipped for teaching purposes with a large pull-down screen for presentations. A new wireless network links the presenter's computer to the practice network which means that the clinical system, our Intranet & the general Internet can be accessed for teaching & case-review purposes.

April 2009

Rotation of F2 Doctors

Blackheath hosts Foundation Year 2 (F2) doctors. Each F2 doctor spends four months with us. Dr Emily Ashworth has now returned to hospital practice and we are now joined by Dr Rebecca Ratcliff.