Dr Armanda Finn will be leaving the Oaks on 17^th November after 15 years!   

She will be greatly missed by patients and colleagues alike.  She has always strived to deliver the best possible patient care at The Oaks, and has worked in conjunction with local practices to ensure that healthcare can also been delivered to our patients across our Primary Care Network.    Armanda will be retiring from General Practice to spend more time with her family. 

Having specialised in women's health and learning disabilities, Armanda will hand over to Dr Sonia Quratulain, who joins the Oaks from mid-November onwards. 

Sometimes we all need a bit of help, especially with the recent increases in the cost of energy, food and other bills.  This hub provides advice and information for people impacted by the cost of living crisis.

https://www.sevenoaks.gov.uk/homepage/97/help_with_the_cost_of_living

Please see attached for information on some food banks within the Kent and Medway area.

Did you know…?

We are participating in a new approach to improve access for patients to GP appointments. The aim is to direct patients to the most appropriate healthcare professional, which may be a GP or a pharmacist.

From Monday 14th March, if your symptoms could be resolved by a booked consultation with the pharmacist instead of the GP, you will be given a same-day referral to a pharmacy of your choice.

We think this is a good thing. Once you see how great your local pharmacist is – they are highly trained and skilled clinicians experienced in treating minor illnesses – we don’t think you’ll look back.

This will also help us to free up GP appointments for people with more complex health needs and ensure that everyone gets treated at the right time, by the right healthcare professional.

We are keen to hear what you think and will be listening to your comments and feedback about your experience of using this service.

A large purpose-built health centre housing both the Oaks and Cedars surgeries has been talked about for many years and has now gone through public consultation. Although no concrete dates are known for when works will start; the partners from each surgery feel it would be in the best interests of our respective patient populations that we work more closely together to develop services ahead of the Swanley Hub being built and us being under one roof.

Working together within Swanley and Rural PCN is nothing new. For the last few years, both Oaks and Cedars surgeries have been collaborating with Devon Road and Braeside surgeries to deliver services as a network of practices and employ additional staff within practices such as paramedics and pharmacists. Notably, more recently we have collaborated on offering COVID-19 and flu vaccinations to the wider community.

With the Oaks and Cedars collaborating, being so geographically similar, and now, with the new building in sight, it is sensible to develop aspects of our patient care together. Given the ongoing retirement of clinical staff across the NHS and difficulty in replacing doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, this is also a timely intervention to maintain a medical presence within Swanley town centre.

The current partners will continue at The Oaks but Dr Clayton, Dr Finn and Dr Farrant as salaried GPs and Dr Mufti will work in Partnership with Dr Jones and Dr Giakoumi from the Cedars Surgery.

Both practices plan to continue to operate at their current locations as the Oaks Partnership and the Cedars Surgery, with the same staffing and appointment structures that they have now.  We will aim firstly to collaborate on delivering some elements of healthcare to patients, in the same way as we have done for the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

Both surgeries are excited to share this news with you and look forward to delivering high-quality patient care from a new building in the years to come.  As we near the completion of the Swanley Hub building in a few years, both practices will relocate together and will likely plan to become one larger medical practice housing a merged list of patients. We see this as an exciting opportunity for us to build a secure future for our two practices and medical care in Swanley. It will enable us to manage and navigate the challenges of the NHS and offer the best for our patients with better resources.

To summarise, the planned collaboration will not mean changes for patients in the way they interact with us. For now, patients will not see changes to the way we operate on a day-to-day basis, but we feel it is important to share this positive news with you, along with our plans for the years to come.

Staff and the respective patient participation groups have been informed of the changes and if there are any questions, please do ask. We plan to release a newsletter in the near future that may help to answer common thoughts and queries about our collaboration.

Please don’t forget to pay for your parking

Automatic Number Plate Recognition Cameras in Action in the CCP Car Park.

ANPR Cameras are in operation in the private CCP Car Park outside the practice.  Please ensure that you pay to park to avoid any fines and take note of the notices displayed by CCP Car Parks.  Disabled blue badge holders do need to pay to use the car park.  The car park machines take cash and debit/credit cards and there is an app that can be used called Tap2Pay.

The Oaks Partnership is not liable for any fines that may be imposed by CCP as a result of not paying for parking.

No urine samples will be accepted after 11am each day unless specifically requested urgently by the surgery.  This is so that samples that need to be sent on to the microbiology laboratory can be collected each morning for analysis.

Thank you.

We are aware that there has been much in the media about GPDPR.  Please follow the links to further information from the NHS and why your data matters to them.  There is also a section on mythbusting social media posts about the national data opt-out.  If you do wish to opt out of the service you may do so online or by downloading, signing and returning your opt out form to the practice.  You may also change your mind.