Healthstone's projects of collaboration have embraced different aspects of health care.

Extended opening
We are aware that not everybody can easily get to the surgery in the working week so we have collectively developed a Saturday opening on a rota basis. This works brilliantly and enables patients to be seen on a Saturday. The GP that sees them will have access to the medical record so will be aware of all the pertinent issues for that patient. We would argue that this is a much better service than any out of hours - because all the relevant information is available and a contemporaneous record is made at the time of the consultation. This project has only been possible because of all the hard work we did at the planning stages by all moving to a unified computer programme for notes storage. Additionally, this has helped some of the demand management issues around the inappropriate use of A+E.

Saturday Opening Times
For detailed information on which surgery is open on a specific Saturday, please contact your usual surgery during normal working hours:

Heatherview Medical Centre - 01202 743678
Maderia Medical Centre - 01202 741345
Herbert Avenue Surgery - 01202 743333

Diabetes in the community: Months of careful planning by a team of GPs, nurses and managers has put together a really good plan for bringing some aspects of diabetic care closer to the patient by moving some aspects from the hospital to community provision. We have the support of our hospital colleagues and wish to really enhance and motivate all our diabetic patients to make the best use of our clinical skills and work together to improve better diabetic screening and control. This plan is fully ready to go but needs final approval to get underway.

You might also like to see our Health Resources page which lists several very good, general interest sites

Please use the following links and resources page with useful numbers to seek more support and information about your health care. The internet links here are useful ones. We are all aware that better health outcomes are achieved where patients are able to understand their illnesses and this helps to improve communication between doctors and patients.