FAIRFAX GROUP PRACTICE

2018 – Issue 1 (January)

Welcome

What’s New!

Welcome to the first patient newsletter of 2018. We issue newsletters once every 3 months which we hope will be of benefit to our patients. If you have any ideas on what we can include in future newsletters, please let us know. You can also find lots of information about our practice on our website at

Urgent Care Proposal – Consultation Period

Patients and the public are invited by NHS Bury CCG to share their views on a proposed future model for urgent care in Bury. Through the consultation which starts on Monday 29th January 2018, for a period of six weeks (ending on Sunday 11th March 2018), the CCG aims to capture the views and feedback from local people, stakeholders and health care professionals alike. Access more information about the proposals HERE (or via the CCG website homepage, )

New Doctors

We are pleased to announce that Dr Buddana who spent around 18 months with us as a GP Trainee, successfully completed her training in November of last year and she has now joined the practice on a permanent basis working 4 mornings per week. We are very happy to welcome her back. We also have a new GP trainee, Dr Christine Umeadi who has recently joined us and she will be with us for the next 2 years or so whilst completing her GP training.

Opening times, extended working hours, online services and more…

Opening times

Did you know we are open from 8am until 6.30pm on normal working days? You can also request a telephone consultation if you feel you don’t need to physically make a trip to see your health care professional at the Practice. To help with making appointments at other times to fit around work, school and other commitments, evening (until 8pm) and weekend appointments (8am until 6pm) are available from three locations across Bury. Find out about availability by contacting the Practice.

Online services and free NHS Wi-Fi

If you haven’t done so already, you might want to think about signing up to online services at Have a chat with our Digital Champion (David) about the benefits of online services, where you can book and cancel appointments, order repeat prescriptions and access part of your GP records, find out more here. If you want to have a look online about the benefits of online services whilst waiting for your appointment in the Practice, book another appointment or order a repeat prescription, you can use free NHS Wi-Fi.

Preparing for your appointment

You can get the most of our your appointment at the Practice by preparing in advance, there is some good advice available online including taking notes in with you to your appointment and not being afraid to ask questions about anything you find unclear. We want you to get the most out of your appointment. You can read more about this here.

Can your Practice Nurse help?

Don’t forget you can book in with your Practice Nurse for health issues such as family planning, healthy living advice and blood pressure checks. Nurses also help patients with vaccinations and immunisations, cervical smears, the management of long term conditions and much more, so please ask at reception as you may not need to see a GP.

Need to cancel? Please get in touch

We understand that sometimes things crop up which may mean you need to cancel or change your planned appointment. Please don’t worry but do give us a call or cancel your appointment online as soon as you can, so that we can make this available to another patient.

Prescription Requests

There are several ways in which you can request your repeat prescriptions:

  • Call in and request
  • Through your local Pharmacy
  • Online at
  • By post

Please remember to allow 48 hours for repeat prescriptions to be prepared.

Going on Holiday?

For any travel advice or injections, pleasecomplete the travel form available from reception or on our website at return this to reception. This will be passed on to the practice nurse team and you will be contacted to arrange an appointment. Please remember, you should do this at least 6 weeks before you travel, to allow time for your consultation with the nurse and to ensure the appropriate vaccines are given in time. Some travel vaccines are ordered on a private prescription and these incur a charge over and above the normal prescription charge. This is becausenot all travel vaccinations are included in the services provided by the NHS. Please also be aware that there is currently a European shortage of the Hepatitis A vaccination.

Flu Vaccinations

We have had a very good uptake this year but we would advise anyone who is entitled to the flu vaccine, to have it now whilst these are still available.

We value your feedback

We value your feedback about the services we provide and we would be grateful if you could complete the very quick ‘Friends and Family Test’ when you visit the Practice.

If you receive a copy of the annual GP Patient Survey, we would really encourage you to complete and return this as we can use the results to improve our services and your experience.

We would also like to invite you to join virtual patient representative group. You can sign up to this (either at reception or via our website) to receive regular updates from the practice and to have your say on the services we offer by way of feedback, surveys etc.

We always welcome your feedback.