Stannary Surgery Text Only Site

Tavistock General Hospital
This is a greatly valued asset, which is serviced by all the general practitioners in the area. Doctors may admit patients to the hospital, which also has out- patient facilities for visiting consultants, a casualty department and an X-ray department. It also has a well equipped physiotherapy department.

Going into Hospital
For urgent admission, the doctor will arrange for transport. This is usually an ambulance, although a family or friend’s car may be appropriate. Apart from basic toiletries, please remember to take a little money for shopping etc. and also a pen and paper, as this is often forgotten.

For arranged admissions, the same advice applies, but it may be appropriate to arrange for a hospital car to take you to the hospital, which can be organised through the surgery.

Hospital Transport
If you are elderly, disabled or are unable to get to the hospital under your own steam, you may be entitled to free transport.

TRIP is an established charity working in the area and they work in conjunction with The Westcountry Ambulance Service and Voluntary Car Services.

To book transport patients must call 08450 539100 at least 48 hours in advance. The lines are open between 9 and 5 Monday to Friday and 9 until 1 on Saturdays. There is a criteria that must be met before transport can be allocated and for the car service there is a flat charge per journey. For more information call the number above.

Plymouth Heartbeat is a registered charity that has a courtesy car available to take cardiac patients to hospital appointments and to take them home again, anywhere in Devon and Cornwall. All voluntary drivers are trained in CPR, basic life support and defibrillation. If you would like to make a donation towards petrol that would be greatly received but in any event a thank you is good enough. If you have a cardiac illness and would like to use this service they can be contaced on 01752 658083 or 01752 789508. Please note this is a service for patient with a cardiac illness only.

Things that need to be done when there is a death
If someone dies at home you must call your doctor who will certify the death. Unless the doctor decides to refer the matter to the Coroner, he or she will prepare a Medical Certificate within the next day or so.

This certificate must be taken to the local Registrar of Births or Deaths within five days of the death. Your funeral director will give you the Registrar’s address and opening hours and will explain what you have to do when you get there.

The Registrar will require personal details of the deceased such as their date and place of birth and death, a marriage certificate if this applies, and will want
to know whether they were receiving a pension or any welfare benefits. The Registrar will then issue the death certificate and the notification of disposal which should be given to the funeral director.

You will also need more than one copy of the death certificate, probably as many as five altogether. You will need a copy for the Will, for any pension claims, insurance policies and investments.

Sudden Death
If the death is sudden or unexpected your doctor has a duty to tell the police. They will report it to the coroner who may call for a post-mortem and may arrange for an inquest, which is a public inquiry to find out the cause of death. You should not be alarmed by this. In most cases it is merely a technicality.

There are many trained people who can help you to get through this, such as counsellors, nurses and of course your doctor, who will be involved initially.

There are various groups whom it may be useful to contact in the long term such as:

Bereavement Advice
Bereavement is a distressing but common experience. Sooner or later most of
us will suffer the death of someone we love.

Grieving takes place after any sort of loss e.g. a divorce, but most powerfully
after the death of a loved one. Feelings experienced over a period of time
range from emotional to physical effects such as :

Various stages of mourning often overlap and show themselves in different
ways - we are all individuals.

The NHS delegates its responsibility for Primary Care (healthcare provision outside hospitals i.e General Practices and other Community Health Services) to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). The Primary Care Trusts provide funding and support for all the medical services carried out by the organisations within its boundaries.

Our Primary Care Trust is the South Hams and West Devon Primary Care Trust. It is responsible, through the organisations it helps to fund, for around 100,000 people. Around 4,700 are registered with Stannary Surgery, which makes us just about an‘ average’ sized practice.

We, the Partners of Stannary Surgery, are independent contractors (as indeed are the vast majority of general practitioners in the UK). We are not employees of the NHS. This means we run the Surgery as a business, employing staff ourselves (Practice Nurses, Practice Manager, Reception, Administration and Secretarial Staff, Physiotherapist, Chiropodist and Counsellor).

Some of the personnel attached to the surgery whom you may encounter are employees of the NHS (Community Nurses, Health Visitor, Midwife and Dietitian) – we of course work closely with these valued team members but we do not employ them.

The Partners are contracted by the NHS (through the Primary Care Trust) to provide healthcare to our patients, and it is this work that takes up the bulk of all of our time.

There have been radical changes to the contract between ourselves and the NHS – a New Contract will be effective from 1 April 2004. The stated aim of the New Contract is to reward practices for quality – the better we perform, the greater the rewards for the Practice.

There is also recognition by the Government of the fact that tired doctors do not necessarily make good decisions - so ‘24 hour care of patients’ will become a thing of the past. There will be other significant changes to the way we work – but the effect upon the patients should be minimal.

We shall no longer be responsible for 24 hour care of patients. The responsibility for the care of patients outside normal working hours (from 1830 – 0800) and at weekends will fall to the Primary Care Trust (PCT). It is likely that most of the ‘out of hours’ doctors will be from the wider local area but not necessarily from the former Tavidoc practices. During these hours, patients will be requested to attend Tavistock Hospital up to midnight, thereafter to Plymouth or Okehampton. There will be a duty doctor in a car available for those unable to attend but this will have a wide area to cover. It is likely that these changes will be in place from 1 October 2004 at the latest.

Patients will be registered with the Practice and not with an individual Doctor. Each patient will be able to request to see the Doctor of his choice but it should be borne in mind that the Doctor of choice may not be the first available.

The PCT will have the right to commission certain more specialised services from just a few practices in the area. This may mean that some new services may be offered by Stannary Surgery to you and to other practices’ patients in the future. Similarly, some existing services may no longer be available from the Surgery. Examples of services that might be affected include: coil fitting, warfarin monitoring, minor surgery and monitoring of some prescribed drugs.

There will be many more chronic disease clinics. Some of you will be attending the Diabetic and Asthma Clinics – in the future there will be additional clinics to help with managing Heart Disease, Smoking related lung diseases, and possibly others. These clinics will be run by the Practice Nurses. Anybody with one of these conditions will be offered a regular comprehensive review on an annual basis.

Please refer to The New GMS Contract notice board for more information and updates.

If you require further information about these Acts please enquire at the reception desk or arrange to speak with the Practice Manager.

Access to your medical records
If you wish to have access to your medical records please either ask your General Practitioner or speak to the Practice Manager.

Complaints
If you have a particular complaint that you wish to bring to our attention, lease speak to the Practice Manager in the first instance and he will do his utmost to resolve your complaint. He will immediately arrange a preliminary discussion with you to resolve the matter if possible.

If a further investigation is required, that involves other clinicians or staff within the Practice, this will be conducted within a week and you will be invited to attend a follow up meeting as required to inform you of the outcome.

If your complaint is still unresolved to your satisfaction, he will refer you to the appropriate authority within the South Hams and West Devon Primary Care Trust.

Comments & Plaudits
We are always keen to hear your views as to how the service could be enhanced even further.

If you have any ideas or suggestions that you would like to raise please contact the Practice Manager in the first instance.

Many of our patients feel inspired to send letters of commendation to the Practice and these are always warmly received too as they help to confirm that we are delivering the level of service that we aspire to.