Happy New Year. We hope you all made it through the festive season
As our thoughts go to New Year resolutions, we have some advice for lifestyle changes that can help improve your overall wellbeing.
Meet the team this issue is the physiotherapy team, they will be very busy if everyone is going to start “couch to 5 Km”.
The Innovations section is particularly interesting, as we are pressing ahead with the AccuRx online triage tool to replace our existing triage templates and Engage Consult online consultation previewed in our last issue. This is launching this week, we have had patient test trials, and used our care homes a “Guinea Pigs”, and will be rolling out on the web site imminently.
January is cervical cancer screening awareness month. We are putting a link to the screening information section on our web site with a survey.
New Years Resolutions:
The ones that actually work:
- Eat Well
- Exercise Regularly
- Limit alcohol
- Don’t smoke
- Get enough Sleep
Yes it’s the same ones we have been promising ourselves for decades, but research is incontrovertible, improving lifestyle really impacts on things that matter, such as Dementia, Diabetes, Heart attack and Stroke risk, and Cancer, far more than medications can after you have already developed these, prevention is more effective than trying to cure the damage after it has happened.
Hastings Borough Council has a link to the Hastings “Couch to 5k” group, heart and Sole Runners:
And the link for all the Active Hastings information on many activity groups to get you moving:
https://www.hastings.gov.uk/sport_play/getactive/activehastings_listings?actcat=-1
If you feel you need a more holistic approach, One You have Health coaches, Smoking cessation, exercise and weight management support:
https://oneyoueastsussex.org.uk/
Changes need to be consistent and achievable to have any long term benefit, a small realistic goal like walking a few thousand steps, that you can be doing this time next year, is better than attempting to run a marathon on a “sugar free, fat free, alcohol free diet” that falls flat after 2 days.
Cancer Screening News:
The targeted lung screening programme continues, our patients are still being called, if you are in the target group you will hopefully be called soon.
https://sussexlunghealthcheck.nhs.uk/
January is Cervical Cancer Screening awareness month..
One of our Doctors, Dr Lisa Samson, is working with public health and the local PCN on a project to try to increase uptake of this vital programme for the whole of Hastings. She has prepared the Cervical Cancer awareness information and survey.
January is cervical cancer awareness month.
Each year, more than 3,200 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in the UK. This type of cancer can affect people of all ages.
The cervix is the lower part of the womb (uterus) that joins to the top of the vagina. It is sometimes called the neck of the womb. People who have a cervix include women, transgender (trans) men and people assigned female at birth.
Nearly all cervical cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a very common virus. 8 in 10 of us will come into contact with HPV in our lives. HPV is transmitted through skin-to-skin sexual contact. Most of the time our bodies will clear the virus, and it won’t cause any issues. Rarely, HPV lingers and develops cell changes or cancer. The HPV vaccine is administered in school for young boys and girls aged 12/13 years old, it acts by preventing HPV. A 90% reduction in cervical cancer has been shown through using the HPV vaccine.
Cervical cancer develops very slowly from abnormal cell changes in the cervix. These initial changes do not cause any symptoms, but they may be found with cervical screening tests (smear). If the tests show abnormal cell changes, treatment can prevent cancer developing.
Some of the common symptoms of cervical cancer can include:
- Vaginal bleeding unusual for you, which can include after sex, in between periods or after menopause.
- Changes in vaginal discharge
- Pain or discomfort during sex
- Pain in your lower back or pelvis.
Contact The Hill Surgery and get the symptoms checked if you experience them. These symptoms can be embarrassing, but the earlier cervical cancer is found, the easier it is to treat.
For more information on cervical cancer
- What is cervical cancer? – NHS
- Cervical cancer | Cancer Research UK
- Cervical Cancer Awareness Month | Macmillan Cancer Support (easy read and translated versions available)
Cervical Screening
Cervical screening is available from 25 years to 64 years in England to anyone with a cervix, currently, people aged 25 to 49 receive invitations every 3 years and those aged 50 to 64 receive invitations every 5 years. Transgender men with a cervix and registered as male do not receive invites from the national screening program and we encourage you to contact the surgery to book directly.
Cervical screening helps prevent cervical cancer by checking for Human Papillomavirus and cervical cell changes. It is not a test for cancer (if you have symptoms as mentioned previously you should seek medical advice) but helps to prevent cancer by testing for the Human Papillomavirus and if found checking for any cell changes and starting any treatment needed early.
One in three women and people with a cervix don’t attend cervical screening and we would like to change this.
During January we will be sending a text to those who are overdue their cervical screening for them to book an appointment, we will also be sending a survey to understand any difficulties attending screening and our low uptake. If your cervical screening is overdue, please phone The Hill Surgery 01424 755355, alternatively IC24 based at Station Plaza also have cervical screening availability telephone: 01424 884410 to book.
For more information on cervical screening:
- Cervical screening – The Eve Appeal
- Cervical screening – NHS
- Cervical screening | Macmillan Cancer Support
HPV vaccination
We would also like to highlight the HPV vaccine which is administered in schools for girls and boys aged 12/13 years old. It works by reducing your chances of getting human papillomavirus (HPV), a common virus that’s spread through skin contact (usually when having sex) and works better before someone is sexually active.
Most types of HPV are harmless and even if we have contact our bodies usually clear the virus. However persistent HPV infection can lead to cervical cancer, genital warts and increased risk of other cancers including:
If you missed getting vaccinated when you were 12 or 13, the HPV vaccine is available for free on the NHS for all young women from age 14 up until their 25th birthday and young men born after 1st September 2006.
Please contact The Hill Surgery if you missed your vaccination and would like to book it.
The HPV vaccine is also available for those outside the above catch-up program deemed at high risk of HPV persistence including men who have sex with men and those with HIV at local sexual health services.
For more information on the HPV vaccine HPV vaccine – NHS
HPV vaccination
The universal HPV immunisation programme – with easy read, sign language and alternative languages provided.
If you have never had a smear, please can you fill in the following survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6ZWB55Y
Meet the Team:
First Contact Physiotherapy
Ashly, Sangeeth and Karthik are our PCN physiotherapy team. They each work at the Harold road site one day a week, on a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, but if necessary, they can see you at other times when other Surgeries are hosting their clinics. This highly trained team can assess all of your regular musculoskeletal complaints, order xrays if needed and refer on to orthopaedics if required. They can offer short intervention exercises and review, and arrange for analgesics. Any further specialist treatments, such as aqua-therapy, chest physio or women’s health related problems, need to assessed by the appropriate specialist Hospital team, they can see anyone 18 years and over.
Innovations:
AccuRx has arrived. We have been given early access to this, and are launching this step-wise into our triage and online consultation process. It has been patient tested and has the “this is so simple” stamp of approval, so we are going ahead with launching for our care homes and online consultations (with initial limits on capacity) as a replacement for engage consult. Once we are happy it is working as we expect, and the team are familiar with it, we will launch the full package. I have linked the information in the Issue 5 news letter, for more about what it looks like and the basic promotional video. Phone users will not really notice a difference, but we are hoping this will eventually stop the 8.30am crush and phone queue.
https://www.thehillsurgery.nhs.uk/patient-participation-forum-newsletter-issue-5/
https://accurx.nhs.uk/patient-initiated/G81031
Complaints:
We have had feedback that patients, or their representatives, do not know how to make a complaint. For the sake of clarity please see the process map below, and follow the link for the web site, if you have a genuine complaint.
Please note that telling us you are unhappy with being 103 in the que, because 102 of your fellow patients were also ill and wanted attention, is not worthy of an actual complaint investigation, especially when we have capacity to answer over 800 calls a day. We are not going to deny some a service, because others are impatient.
To get the best out of the process, we need Specifics, saying “staff are rude” is not enough, we need date, time, site or mode of contact, and the exact issue with what was said. It also helps if the complaint is concise. It is not unusual to get complaints about a brief encounter that run to several typed pages, even a verbatim account would require a fraction of this, and will not necessarily result in a more detailed reply. We are not able to investigate or reply to complaints about other organisations.
All complaints are investigated, responded to in writing, analysed for trends, audited and logged by NHSDigital. Please note that if you are making a complaint on behalf of a patient, we will need consent to respond to you. For the sake of clarity and an audit trail, complaints need to be in writing, so there is no dispute about the exact nature of the complaint, or the response. From the 6th of January, NHS Frimley will not be handling the NHSE complaints, these will revert to the ICB. Complaints can be sent in directly to the practice, for attention of the Manager, or to the ICB, who will then pass them on to the practice to investigate and respond to as usual, please note this route may introduce a delay.
https://www.thehillsurgery.nhs.uk/patient-info/complaints-compliments/
There is also the link for feedback, good and bad:
https://www.thehillsurgery.nhs.uk/patient-group/patient-feedback/
As with on line feedback, this is best for an overall impression, or alerting us to something more general, like an issue with the web site. If there are specific issues you need to be resolved, we need specifics to investigate, and contact details to get back to you. The anonymous one star review does not help us identify who has the issue and what the issue was or how to resolve it, and is not helpful to anyone apart from those who feel better when they have something negative to say.
Thank You:
On a lighter note, we would like to thank you all for the very kind and generous gifts we were given in the run up to Christmas. The staff will be kept in biscuits for their morning coffee for the rest of the year. Thank you.
Results for the patient Survey for closure of the Beaconsfield Road site.
NHS Sussex News 3.1.2025