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Making urgent care work well for everyone in Greenwich Tell us what you think about urgent care services in Greenwich

November 2013

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Contents

Who we are ............................................................... 3

Urgent care ............................................................... 3

What this booklet is about ...................................... 4

How to tell us what you think ................................. 5

Where you can get urgent care .............................. 6

Things to do with appointments ............................ 8

Our plan for out of hours care ................................ 9

What do you think? ............................................... 10

What happens next ................................................ 13

Making a complaint ............................................... 14

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Who we are

We are NHS Greenwich. We are in charge of healthcare services in Greenwich.

It is our job to help you get the healthcare you need when you need it.

We want to do more about making sure you get urgent care when you need it.

Urgent care is the name for healthcare you need quickly, but your life is not at risk.

Urgent care

There are many different places you can go to for urgent care.

This can be confusing if you are not sure where to go. It can mean it takes longer than it should to get urgent care you need.

We want to make it easier for everyone to get urgent care.

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What this booklet is about

We want to make sure that health services near where you live give you the right care you need, the first time you need it.

We think we can do this by changing the way some services work. For example, we want to make it easier for you to talk to your doctor or GP.

This booklet is about our plans for urgent care.

● We want to know what you think about our plans

● We want to know any ideas that you have for making urgent healthcare work better

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How to tell us what you think

You can use the form that is available on the website www.greenwichccg.nhs.uk to tell us what you think.

You can get more copies of this booklet and form from

● doctor/GP surgeries

● patient groups

● community, faith and other organisations

● online at www.greenwichccg.nhs.uk

Send your form in by 10th January 2014.

Post the form to

FREEPOST RSXZ – CARX – TRBU Right Care First Time NHS Greenwich Clinical Commissioning Group 31-37 Greenwich Park Street London SE10 9LR

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Where you can get urgent care

You can

● ask a pharmacist/chemist

● see your doctor/GP at the GP surgery

● see a doctor or nurse at the walk in centre. A walk in centre is an NHS clinic that you do not need to make an appointment for. You go in and wait your turn

● Phone the NHS 111 helpline - this is the service to ring when you need healthcare out of hours

● Go to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Greenwich

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When we asked them, most people thought they should go to the hospital to get urgent care.

This means they are not going to their doctor/GP first.

Seeing a GP first is a good idea. It can stop you from having to go into hospital and having to wait a long time to see a doctor. It can save the NHS a lot of money.

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Things to do with appointments

Some people found it hard to get an appointment. Having enough services for people

Getting an appointment at the GP surgery would help a lot of people get the urgent care they need.

Some people do not come to their appointments. We are sending people a text to remind them about their appointment. This has worked well in other areas and we think it will work in Greenwich.

Some people go to A and E because they are not registered with a GP. We want everyone to register with a GP.

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Our plan for out of hours care

Out of hours care

We think some changes to out of hours care will help. Out of hours care is when you need healthcare after your surgery has closed.

NHS 111 is the service to ring when you need healthcare out of hours.

Sometimes people are told to come to the out of hours service at Shooters Hill Road.

The out of hours building is really near the urgent care centre at the hospital.

We think it is a good idea to have the out of hours service at the urgent care service at Queen Elizabeth Hospital instead of in another building.

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What do you think?

We think it may help more people to get the right healthcare if there are more out of hours services.

Here are some questions we are asking:

What do you think about having an out of hours service at Thamesmead and at the new Eltham Community Hospital?

We think it is a good idea to make the urgent care centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital bigger. This will mean it will have some new services like x-rays and an area for children.

We want to ask you some questions about our plans for urgent care.

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What do you think about using the money from the 2 walk in centres to pay for other services and the urgent care centre?

Things to do with walk in centres

There are 2 walk in centres.

One is in Woolwich, the other at Thamesmead.

The walk in centres are both part of a GP surgery.

Our plan is to use the money normally used for the walk in centres to

● make other services better

● put money into the out of hours services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital

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What do you think would make it easier to get to healthcare services like the urgent care centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital?

Things to do with transport

We know that transport can make a big difference to how easy or how hard it is to get to healthcare services.

We plan to work with London Transport and other companies to see what can be done to make transport better.

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What happens next

We will think carefully about everything you tell us about making urgent healthcare better.

We may not be able to do all the things people tell us.

We will do our best to make sure any changes happen slowly so that everyone can get used to them.

We will tell you our final plans for urgent healthcare in 2014.

For more information, look at our website www.greenwichccg.nhs.uk

If you have any questions

Email us at greccg.nhsgreenwichccg@nhs.net

or

Call us on 020 3049 9021

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Making a complaint

If you are not happy about something to do with this consultation, you can make a complaint.

Please write to:

Simon Hall Director of Integrated Commissioning NHS Greenwich Clinical Commissioning Group 31-37 Greenwich Park Street Greenwich London SE10 9LR

Thank you to Raincharm for the words. www.raincharm.co.uk

Thank you to Photosymbols for the pictures. www.photosymbols.com

Thank you to Advocacy in Greenwich who helped check the words and pictures