News
The Langton Medical Group will be holding its annual flu clinics from the end of September.
Clinics will be held at Curborough Community Centre (Lichfield), Whittington Village Hall and Boney Hay Working Men’s Club.
Commuter clinics will also be held at the Lichfield surgery on Monday evenings throughout October.
Patients will be invited to book their flu vaccination from mid-August via a self-book link within their text invitation. If you have a mobile number that has changed or has not been provided to the practice, please let us know via our practice website. If you do not have a mobile number, the practice will contact you to book you in. Confirmation and reminder messages will be sent out closer to each clinic date.
We would encourage all our eligible patients to take up their offer of a free flu vaccination from us to protect you, your family, friends and the NHS this winter.
Patients eligible for the flu include:
- Patients in long stay residential care homes
- Patients aged 65 years and over
- Those aged 6 months to under 65 years in a clinical at risk group
- Pregnant women
- Carers
- Close contacts of immunosuppressed individuals
- Frontline health and social care staff (patient contact)
- Children aged 2 or 3 years on 31st August 2023
Primary school children (reception to Year 6) and Secondary school children (Years 7-11) will be offered their vaccination as part of the School Immunisation Programme.
Patients aged 50-64 years that are not in an at risk group are not currently eligible this year. This may be subject to change following advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
The Langton Medical Group
REFERRAL WAITING TIMES
If you have been referred by ourselfs please see the current waiting times until you will receive an appointment from the hospital. If you believe your referral has gone over the recommended waiting times please contact the hospital you was referred to and enquire with them.
> 2WW Referral - 2-4 Weeks
> Urgent Referral - 3 - 5 Months
> Routine Referral - 6+ Months
GP Pressures
GP practices in England are experiencing significant and growing strain with declining GP numbers, rising demand, struggles to recruit and retain staff and knock-on effects for patients.
The latest GP workforce data showed that the number of fully qualified GPs has dropped since September 2015. In July 2023, the NHS in England had the equivalent of 27,177 fully qualified full-time GPs, which is 2,187 fewer than in September 2015. The longer-term trend shows that the NHS is losing GPs at an alarming rate: over the past year (between July 2022 and July 2023) it lost the equivalent of 330 fully qualified full-time GPs and the equivalent of 358 full-time partners. This means that, on average, the NHS lost 28 fully qualified FTE GPs per month over the past year.
The number of GP practices in England has decreased by 102 over the past year – reflecting a long-term trend of closures as well as mergers primarily due to a lack of workforce. This coincides with a rise in patients. As of July 2023, there was another average of 9,834 patients registered per practice, and as a result, the average number of patients each full-time equivalent GP is responsible for continues to rise, and now stands at 2,305. This is an increase of 367 patients per GP, or 19%, since 2015, demonstrating the ever-mounting workload in general practice.
Practice Updates
