With the current surge in cases, it appears again that we're at a higher risk than before - oddly enough it feels much of the infrastructure preparation that we've done in the last 2.5 years has been more in preparation for the current climate than it has proven useful prior, but nevertheless - please be careful and stay safe out there!

The CSMP policy is as follows:

• Patients with respiratory symptoms OR those identified as close contacts need to present a negative RAT done from within 2 hours of their appointment time to be seen on-site, otherwise they should be encouraged to choose telehealth or rebook.
• Staff that test positive should not return on-site until 10 days AFTER their positive result (which can be confirmed either by RAT or PCR). The full raft of remote measures will be at your disposal (rainbow for phones, eligible patients moved to telehealth).
• Unfortunately, COVID telehealth eligibility does NOT extend to patients if their DOCTOR has COVID.
• If a family member or other household close contact tests positive, please ensure that you test RAT negative (daily for up to 7 days) before attending the site!

As always, please use your own judgement if you develop respiratory symptoms and get tested. I would also like to thank the clinical staff for the defacto rotating roster of COVID infections, as this has made things slightly easier for rebooking patients and allocating resources!

Welcome Tanisha Lalli and Welcome (back) Rebekah Lebbos!

I'm thrilled to be welcoming Tanisha Lalli into the CSMP family! Tanisha has worked at a nuimber of large GP clinics previously, and as such has already settled in wonderfully into our idiosyncratic way of doing things. She'll be with us on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

At the same time, Rebekah Lebbos has returned to us after four years, after having run her own business during that time. Rebekah will be with us on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays - while there've been a range of things change in that time, I'm hoping that there is enough familiarity amongst it to make the transition back as comfortable as possible!

COVID in Community...

With the surges and ebbs in case numbers likely to continue for some time, we've made some changes for our COVID pathways (and in particular antivirals) has been updated:

• If one of our patients tests positive, they will either contact us directly or contact HealthDirect for advice on management.
• Given the potential urgency (and the occasional mixed messaging regarding antiviral eligibility), patients that contact us directly will be booked for a telehelath appointment wherever possible. Patients that have contacted HealthDirect will be booked as a red URGENT appointment via telehealth in the relevant doctors' de facto lunch hour, or at the end of the day, with relevant messages available from their file.

In some cases, given availability of appointments, you may have a booking for a patient whom you have not previously seen - apologies in advance!

Please be advised that the extended telehealth item for consults directly regarding eligibility for antivirals is 93716!

"Long Appointments Only"...

From the Doctors' Committee Summary (August, 2022):

With the increasing number of appointments being made online and the current lack of availability for longer (30 min) slots, the following should be used as a guide:

• When GPs see regular patients for which they have requested 'Long Appointments Only', the GP should book their follow-up appointments at the conclusion of their appointment.
• When possible, patients indicated as 'long appointments only' should be informed of such by their regular GP, in the hopes of fostering a clearer understanding of how they should approach access to care and pathways for appointments.
• If in the course of booking an appointment administrative staff discover that the patient is labelled as 'long appointments only', the staff member should firstly inform the patient that they're unable to book them in that slot, and attempt to find an alternative. If there is none, then the GP with whom the patient is booked should be contacted (via Best Practice) to confirm if they are happy to see the patient in a shorter slot.

While administrative staff while endeavour to manage this when/if seen, it may be difficult to do so with limited availability of long appointments, as well as patients booking online in short intervals when 'on the day' slots become available.

Likewise, patients booking for 30 mins as telehealth phone should be moved to VIDEO consults, or have their phone consults shortened.

Managing Script Requests when you're not around...

Unfortunately, with the increased impact of COVID on staff, there have been a handful of occasions where patients have requested authority or other S8 scripts when their GP is unavailable.

In these circumstances, admin staff will usually:

• check if the patient has seen ANY available GP and forward the request
• attempt to book the patient in with someone else (if possible) so they can be seen

Admin staff will now also SMS GPs in the event that an urgent request comes through where no other solution is available - we're hoping that these circumstances will be limited, and that patients will be equally understanding that sometimes 'we can't fix everything'.

Likewise, if a patient request is forwarded to another GP in your absence, please double-check that the request hasn't already been completed - if for no other reasons than double-handling, but also to avoid cancelling scripts that are issued a second time!

And now for something completely different: MONKEYPOX!

All practice policy information can now be found in the General channel within Microsoft Teams, as well as the most up-to-date list of MBS items.

If you've not logged in to Teams (or forgotten your log on), please contact me!

Duress Alarms - What to do when it (actually) goes off...

The new duress buttons have now all been depolyed to workstations within the practice, and not without some accidental triggering (sorry about that)!

When an alarm is triggered, they will do so siletntly at the workstation at which the 'panic button' is pushed. On all other workstations, a red notice will appear indicating  where the alarm has been triggered, and if your workstation volume is up, there will also be an alarm 'tone'.

When this happens, all staff not currently indisposed (i.e. gloved and in a sterile field) should do the following:

• Attend the location of the alarm.
• One admin staff member should attend from the 280 desk while another remains. Admin staff attending the location should relay relevant information back to the front desk should emergency services (fire, ambulance, police) be required.
• GPs should use their discretion after arriving at the location as to whether they are needed, and should return to clinical duties if not.
  

Behold - the Bike Rack...!

Coming Events...

• Doctors Committee - Thursday, 4th August (1-2:30pm) - Summary from the meeting (and all previous meetings) is available in the Doctors' Committee tab in the Clinical channel of Teams!
• Practice Lunch - Thursday, 11th August (1-2:30pm) - this will be a chance for those (left) of us to meet, greet and welcome new staff, as well as possibly discuss some other post-accreditation requirements for these kinds of events. BRING A PLATE!
• Duress Alarm TESTS - Tuesday, 23rd August and Wednesday, 24th August. These tests are simply to ensure that all rooms have their system properly configured:

The alarm will be triggered from a location at 280 (Tues) and 276 (Wed) between 11am and 1pm. Once the alarm is triggered, do NOT attend the location - please send the following message to me from Teams:

"Room (Your Room Number) - ALERT RECEIVED"

 That's it!