The past year has been a very difficult and trying year for all patients as well as for NHS staff. The COVID-19 virus has taken its toll on the National Health Service. With the introduction of the vaccination programme against the virus, we are hoping things will go back to normal with a few changes in service.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have learnt that patient contact is in a variety of different and effective ways, including telephone consulting, video consulting and the traditional face to face appointments at the Surgery.
We are also aware that patients have been finding it difficult to get through on the telephone and finding it difficult to get appointments. On behalf of the practice, I would like to apologise for this, we are a busy practice with increased number of calls relating to queries arising from the pandemic including vaccination queries. We are looking into our telephone system to make this more accessible with options of choice.
Also the vaccinations have been arranged by the Primary Care Network (PCN) which covers all the Dunstable practices; however our staff, admin and nurses have to support the vaccination site in Dunstable. We as a surgery have been given the task to inform all of our patients of their appointments and this has taken some of the staff away from their usual jobs, which left the other staff with an increased workload.
Over the past few years we have had to cope with a shortage of GPs nationally. This is in tandem with our own Senior Partners (Dr O’Toole and Dr Curt) and also Dr White and Dr Corriette moving onto new pastures. Fortunately, Kirby Road Surgery has had help from our neighbouring practice, Kingsbury Court Surgery, and as part of our new and innovative approach to delivering GP services to Dunstable and the surrounding areas, Kirby Road Surgery and Kingsbury Court Surgery have partnered together. Therefore from 1st April 2021, Kirby Road Surgery has four partners, Dr Karnail Dogra, Dr Ajaz Haider and Dr Abdullah Khan, and me as Senior Partner.
Kirby Road Surgery is very excited about the new ways of working and with the additional input all the new ideas and changes that come with the restructuring.
Hopefully, the Government will be able to lift all the restrictions related to the pandemic and life will resume as normal again.
We welcome any suggestions from you to improve our service.
Kind regards.
Dr Marcel Schutte
Senior Partner
Dr Karnail Dogra, Dr Ajaz Haider and Dr Abdullah Khan
