02 Feb 2021
Dr Mike Ejuoneatse, GP at Central Surgery and Medical Director for St Helens CCG, has a message for patients about accessing GP surgery appointments during the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
GP practices as well as colleagues working in hospitals and other health and care services in Saint Helens are experiencing extremely high demand at the moment due to the covid pandemic.
The GP led-Covid vaccination clinics on the ground floor at Saints are currently running 7 days a week, 12 hours a day to try and vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly and safely as possible - this includes weekends and evenings.
Dr Mike Ejuoneatse, GP at Central Surgery and Medical Director for St Helens CCG, has this message for patients:
"Our GP surgeries remain open for business as usual and continue to treat patients - remotely by phone or video call using e-consult - and face to face where needed. If you are unwell and need to see your GP or practice nurse, please make an appointment as normal.
"However, I would like to ask people to be patient - the health system is under massive pressure at the moment during these unprecedented times. We are in the middle of a pandemic and staff across primary care are working extremely hard delivering vaccination sessions.
"You may have to wait longer for routine appointments than normal but it is important to us that we see/speak to all our patients and make sure we can treat you appropriately. We continue to do baby immunisations and cervical smear tests at this time as well as supporting people with mental health issues, worries about lumps and bumps that may be cancer or those who are unwell with Covid. Please don’t put off contacting us about any of these things or making a routine appointment.
"You can use e-consult on your GP practice website and please contact NHS 111 if you need medical advice or support in the evenings or weekends rather than going to A&E which we need to keep free for those who really need to be there.
"Thank you for your understanding."