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13.43 A jam-packed surgery in sunny Southend

I started at 7.30am this morning – Southend is beautiful and sunny today.

First I checked pathology results, hospital discharge letters and summaries. There were out-of-hours NHS 111 notifications to deal with, and I actioned two of them by inviting patients to attend before the beginning of the 8.30am surgery.

Unfortunately one of our nurse practitioners is off sick and the other nurse is on annual leave, while my associate GP colleague is also on holiday, so the surgery was overbooked with 22 patients and several telephone consults.

After finishing that it’s time for a nice coffee with my dedicated staff, who manage my surgery extremely well and keep me cool, without any interruptions.

After the break, I deal with queries, prescriptions and requests for home visits and telephone triage. That takes me to our Southend CCG-run Time to Learn from 1pm to 4.30pm.

Then this evening I will attend our SPACE group Time to Learn Meeting from 6.30pm to 10.00pm, with a special guest speaker from the local hospital which always helps with our reflective learning and appraisal.  It also gives us an opportunity to share our challenges and ever-increasing workload.