Patient Zone

Patient Information

We have designed this section to give you the most informative and up to date local health news. If you have any comments, feedback or would like to contact us, please either go to our contact page or click here

Health Videos

Please find below some informative videos on current health issues

Pharmacy Teams are healthcare experts

NHS Wirral CCG – Self Care

NHS ‘Choose Well for Wirral’

Healthy Wirral – Wirral care Record

The NHS, your GP, your hospital – Like any precious resource we need to treat it with care

We are very fortunate to have our NHS.  Since 1948, we have achieved great advances in health and social care.  However, it is true that investment has failed to keep up with demand.  The increasing demand is due to many factors and is in part due to the success of the NHS.

You may wonder why GP’s are busier than they used to be.  Life expectancy is greater than ever before, and older people have far more complicated medical and social problems.  Hospitals are discharging patients earlier after admissions and many conditions which were once managed in hospital now fall under the GP’s remit.  We are not only managing patients who are ill, but much of our work now is about disease prevention and treating conditions like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and raised cholesterol, to stop them causing life-threatening illnesses in the first place. It is also the case that increasingly more patients are presenting to the GP or A&E with minor conditions that could be self-managed.  These factors are made worse as nationally we are also experiencing a recruitment crisis in primary care meaning many junior doctors are not wanting to become GPs.

Brighter Birkenhead will work hard to address these many issues at a local level, but what can you do to help?

We need to encourage people to think before they use the NHS, before phoning your GP or attending A&E, please consider whether anyone else can help you.

Here are some options for you to consider:

Your local pharmacist may be able to give you the help you need, so you won’t have to spend time waiting for an appointment.  Pharmacists are highly trained health professionals, who are experts in medicines.  They can offer advice about minor illness, coughs, colds, sore throats, aches and pains, upset stomachs, medication queries, as well as contraceptive and healthy lifestyle advice.  Wirral CCG have joined forces with Wirral Pharmacies to create a service called ‘Think Pharmacy’.  Think Pharmacy has been running since June 2015 and offers many different services for which you can be seen within your local Pharmacy without an appointment by fully trained health staff.  Patient feedback for this scheme has been:

• 99.7% patients stating that they would use the service again
• 90.4 % stating that in the absence of the scheme they would have attending their own GP.

Please click here for more information on this service.

You may also be able to manage your condition yourself, using reliable internet sources.  Two really good websites we recommend are: www.patient.co.uk and http://www.nhs.uk/conditions.  If you have a longer term condition, there may be further help and information available from national organisations such as Diabetes UK or the British Heart Foundation.  Do be careful to only use reliable, credible websites though.

NHS 111 is another service that you may wish to consider.  It’s fast, easy and free. Call 111 and speak to a highly trained adviser, supported by healthcare professionals. They will ask you a series of questions to assess your symptoms and immediately direct you to the best medical care for you.

NHS 111 is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Calls are free from landlines and mobile phones.  For further information on NHS 111 click here.

We hope that by considering alternative ways to manage your condition, it will allow us to provide more timely care for those who really do need a doctor’s input.

Medication Waste…do your bit, help us to help you

Medication waste is a huge drain on NHS finances.  It is costing your NHS approximately £300 million per year (and rising).  Can you help prevent this? Please click here for more information.

‘How are you’ Health Quiz

Please take a few minutes to have a look at this interesting ‘How are you’ Health Quiz, please click on the picture to get started