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Newsletter

April 2026

Retirements

We would like to share the news that two of our long-serving and much-valued staff members had retired. Penny Hughes had been working as Practice Nurse and Advanced Nurse Practitioner at the surgery for 27 years, while Fiona Mahoney dedicated 30 years to support our patients as a receptionist. Throughout their time with us, they have provided exceptional care, professionalism, and compassion to our patients and have been an integral part of our practice. Their commitment and contribution over the years have made a lasting impact on both colleagues and patients alike. While we will greatly miss them, we are incredibly grateful for everything they have done and wish them both a long, happy, and well-deserved retirement.

GP Contract

As we move into the new financial year, we would like to update our patients and Patient Participation Group (PPG) on the 2026/2027 GP contract. These national standards, set by NHS England, ensure all practices provide consistent care. This year’s contract introduces several key shifts:

• New Response Standards: There is a national requirement to ensure that every patient who contacts us receives a timely response. Any request identified by the practice as clinically urgent will be dealt with on the same day. For routine enquiries, we will now provide an appropriate response by the end of the next working day, ensuring you know the next steps for your care.
• Clinical Priorities: The contract introduces new targets for preventative health, specifically focusing on the latest four-pillar treatments for heart failure and improved management of diabetes. We are also working toward new improvement thresholds for childhood and adult vaccinations, including the new RSV programme.
• Enhanced Pharmacy Collaboration: We have established dedicated communication channels with our local community pharmacies. This pharmacy interface makes it easier for our teams to work together, supporting services like Pharmacy First to ensure you get the right care from the right professional as quickly as possible.

We are currently working through these national updates to see how they can best support our community. While we already meet many of these standards—such as our online access hours—we remain committed to using these new guidelines to continuously improve our service. We look forward to discussing these developments with our PPG at our next meeting.

Annual Targets

We are pleased to announce that the surgery has successfully achieved most of our annual targets. Through effective strategic planning, sustained effort, and the dedication of the entire team, we have made significant progress over the past year. This has enabled us to complete annual reviews and deliver essential preventative care to patients across a range of conditions, including cardiovascular health, diabetes, mental health, learning disabilities, dementia, and others. We remain committed to maintaining high standards of care and continuing to improve patient outcomes in the year ahead.

More changes at FHRGP

The patients probably have noticed that the cabinets with paper records had been removed from the waiting area and a new clinical room #20 was built. It would be used by our colleagues from First Contact Physio team. We have changed our phone provider. We anticipate that this will result in smoother call connection, clearer routing options to the appropriate teams, and a more efficient callback system.

Published: Apr 22, 2026