Bowel Cancer Awareness Month
April is bowel cancer awareness month. Did you know bowel cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in the UK?
The main symptoms of bowel cancer may include:
- Changes in your poo, such as having a softer poo, diarrhoea or constipation that is not usual for you
- Needing the poo more or less often than usual for you
- Blood in your poo, which may look black or red
- Bleeding from your bottom
- Often feeling like you need to poo, even if you’ve just been to the toilet
- Tummy pain
- Bloating
- Losing weight without trying
- Feeling very tired for no reason
Some of these symptoms are very common and can be caused by other conditions, having the symptoms does not definitely mean you have bowel cancer but if you have any symptoms of bowel cancer for 3 weeks or more, don’t be embarrassed, see your GP!
More information can be found at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bowel-cancer/
Closed for Easter Bank Holidays
We will be closed on Friday 7th April and Monday 10th April for the Bank Holidays. Please make sure you have enough repeat medication to cover the long weekend.
If during this time you require medical advice or treatment you can:
Visit your pharmacy. Your local pharmacy can provide confidential, expert advice and treatment for a range of common illnesses and complaints. Opening times for local Pharmacies can be downloaded or you can visit NHS Choices.
Access NHS 111. To access the service online simply visit https://111.nhs.uk/ and enter your age, sex, postcode and main symptom, and then you will be guided through a series of questions about your health problems.
To access the service via phone, simply dial 111 from any mobile or landline free of charge and you will be put through to an operator who will run through a few questions regarding your health problem in order to get you the right care.
A&E or 999. For a genuine medical emergency including; loss of consciousness, acute confused state and fits that are not stopping, persistent and or/severe chest pain, breathing difficulties, severe bleeding that cannot be stopped call 999 or go to your nearest A&E.
ORCHA – Cheshire East’s own health & care apps library
Developed by clinicians, ORCHA’s AppFinder gives you unlimited access to thousands of independent app reviews across all health conditions, each of which includes a breakdown of key assessment criteria relating to Clinical Assurance, Data Privacy and User Experience.
Sign up to discover the strengths and weaknesses of an app before downloading or recommending it to a patient. Feel confident in accessing quality assured digital health.
Change of provision of services
As you may be aware the NHS England (who commission our practices services) have set out a requirement that practices work together to ensure that patients are able to access services outside our normal hours of work (8.00am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday).
This way of working is not new to us, we have been providing so called Extended Access services for the last five years, including the ability for our patients to access services locally on Saturdays.
The times we provide extended access services from this practice have been determined by analysing the preferences of our patients over the last five years, we have been keen to offer services to enable patients who work a distance away from the practice to access services.
We are proposing to add further services to our existing provision, from October 2022 our patients will have the opportunity to book appointments here (at the practice) on:
- Saturday – 9.00am – 5.00pm
In addition to the services provided from this practice we are working with our neighbouring practices to offer appointments across the week. As always, the availability of appointments will be dependent on our capacity, however, please ask the practice receptionist if you would ideally like an appointment outside the normal core hours. It is important to stress that the number of appointments offered outside the normal hours will only be a small proportion of our total appointments, as it is important that we do not undermine our normal level of service particularly given the current high levels of demand and our workforce challenges.
As we have stated we are sure that the time this practice provides services (outside of core hours) reflects the preferences of our patients, but we would be pleased to hear your views so that we can continue to evaluate the best times to offer services.
Happy Hearts – Together we can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke during Covid-19
Health services, local authorities, charities and other partners across Cheshire and Merseyside are working together to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
The Cheshire and Merseyside Happy Hearts website is aimed at helping you to reduce your risk of stroke and heart attack by giving you lots of information and tips on keeping your heart happy. The website shares local, practical information on:
- how to live healthily and stay well
- conditions that increase the chances of having a heart attack or stroke, such as
- atrial fibrillation
- high blood pressure
- high cholesterol
- how and where you can get your numbers checked
- how you can help to manage and control these conditions to lower your CVD risk
Visit the Cheshire and Merseyside Happy Hearts website to find out more.
