Dear Patients

I am writing to let you know of the most recent updates after the recent announcements by the Prime Minister regarding the roll out of Covid boosters, as this will big impact on routine health services. Some routine services will be temporarily stopped. Please be assured that any urgent/emergency care will be dealt with as we have always done.

Firstly, we will now be supporting the ongoing national and local vaccination services and will be having prebooked clinics at Langley Health Centre. Please be aware that Langley Health Centre is NOT a walk-in site for Covid vaccinations. Patients registered at the Health Centre will be able to book with us directly, patients registered at other surgeries will need to contact their own surgery for booking.

Secondly as you may know, we are currently undertaking an initial telephone triage for most patients in order to ensure yours and our safety in the current pandemic. We will see you if needed after an initial phone consultation. However, this does mean that the telephone lines are put under enormous pressure as clinicians are ringing out and our admin staff who are booking patients in for covid vaccinations are also ringing out. We are aware that this an issue and have been working to resolve this. We will have a new phone system which can better cope with the extra demand, and whilst we were hoping that the new system would be installed before Xmas, we have been told some extra software and hardware needs installing which will mean the installation won't be until January 2022. However we have also been informed the NHSE has commissioned extra phone capacity which will not use existing telephone lines and will be freeing up the surgery phone lines for patients to call us much more easily. This should go live very soon, and will be operational till April 2022.

I would like to thank all of you for being understanding and appreciate this is for all our common good. Can I request that all adults consider being vaccinated if not already have done so and also get their boosters booked so long as it has been at least 3 months post the 2nd vaccination. We would also strongly recommend those eligible patients to have their flu vaccination as well

We wish you all an enjoyable festive season, bearing in mind the current constraints

Best Wishes

Dr N Adam