Welcome to White House Farm Medical Centre, The Blog

This is a blog to keep you up to date with things happening at our practice. This will run in conjunction with and supplementing our new website.
It is mainly meant for our patients and staff, but other visitors are also very welcome to visit us. Please bear in mind, that although we are happy to listen to your suggestions and answer questions you may have, we will not be offering any personalised medical advice on this blog. If you have any medical questions regarding your own or a loved one's health, we will not be able to deal with those in this setting.
Please in that case arrange to see a doctor of your choosing and discuss your questions and/or concerns at that time.
Feel free to make any suggestions or ask for any general medical information and we will be happy to consider or answer these where we are able to.
We do have comment moderation on, all abusive or offensive comments will not be published.

We hope you will enjoy visiting us here and on our new website (currently still in development) and that this will help to improve our communication with our patients.

All at White House Farm Medical Centre.

Sunday 21 May 2017

Welcome to White House Farm Medical Centre, the blog!

This post will remain on top, please scroll down for more recent posts.

I guess it is about time we start blogging on this blog. Welcome to all our patients, our team and all others interested in our blog.

We are currently in the process of setting up our own website, and this little blog will run in conjunction with that. So, keep an eye out for our website as well. Once it is set up, I will put a link on this blog to it.

What is this blog meant for?

That is a rather easy question. We are planning to update you on things happening at our Medical Centre, some information on things happening in the medical world and anything else that might be of interest to you as far as health and healthcare are concerned.

Please feel free to suggest any subjects you would like discussed here, but bear in mind, we use comment moderation and will not publish any offensive or abusive comments. This to protect our readers as well as ourselves. This blog is meant to be helpful and informative. We may also not be able to take up all your suggestions, but we will certainly consider them.

Our ideas of what is to be included so far include:

  • Overheard from the waiting room (grumbles, queries, etc, and our attempt to explain why things are as they are)
  • In the medical news this week/month
  • What is happening at the practice (changes, clinics, announcing flu clinics etc)
  • Information on clinics and how they are run
  • New developments (booking and cancelling appointments online, ordering prescriptions, etc where appropriate)
  • News from patient participation group (still in development, please feel free to let us know if you are interested to join this group, we are aiming to make this a virtual group to allow the group more freedom/flexibility)
This list is likely to keep growing as we develop further.

I hope this has given you a bit of an overview of what we intend to do. I guess it is about time that we join the modern era.

Monday 27 January 2014

Something to live by, something to lift us up.

There are times in everyone's life, when things just don't go as we would like them to do. A time when you need a bit of help or just someone to help you up or lift your spirits.

I came across the below sentiment some time ago (from Ginger's House, a blog full of sentiments) and felt it was very appropriate to share and just to remind us of it. It is very true and may help to lift our spirits when we feel a bit down in the dumps. Hold on to it and remind yourself frequently!

 
 
 
I really love this sentiment and hope it will help you all as well. Thank you Ginger for sharing this with the world!
 
 
Dr J.E.C. Bennekers

Friday 27 December 2013

A Time for Good Intentions?

Morning all,

This seems to be the time of year when people decided to have good intentions for the New Year. Seems familiar?

Our good intentions are to continue to provide the best medical care we are able to provide to our patients. We may not always get it right, but we certainly try to do so.

Do you have any good intentions for this coming year?

We thought we would get you on your way with some good intentions and how to get about achieving them. The most common ones we hear off are the following:

Stop smoking

There are many ways in which you could achieve this. Some people wish to do it on their own, either through gradually reducing the amount they smoke, going 'cold turkey', or using some nicotine replacement therapies.

If you require any help, try one of the following:


  • see us to place yourself on the waiting list for our smoking cessation clinic.
  • contact Doncaster Smoke Free on 01302 640064 or click on the image below to go to their website.

http://www.smokefree.rdash.nhs.uk/

Loose weight, become more active, get healthier

Why not contact Change4Life to achieve this or see us for some help? You can reach Change4Life on their website, where they also have links to free apps and activities near you. Just click on the image below to go to their website.

http://change4life.icnetwork.co.uk/

Stop drinking or stop doing drugs

We have 2 great services in Doncaster to help you achieve this goal. Just click on the images below to go to their websites for more details.


Telephone: 01302 730956
(drugs and alcohol)

 for young people
01302 571260 


And a few little pointers to being successful:

  • Never give up on yourself!
  • Praise yourself for little achievements!
  • Set yourself only achievable goals!
  • Positive reinforcement works much better than negative reinforcement!
  • If you have a little fall back, don't see it as being a failure, but as a little hurdle to overcome, that was your last cigarette, your last drink, your last binge eating session. You really enjoyed it, but now you are back on track to achieving your goal.

All that rests us now is to say

Good Luck! If you really want to, you have a good chance of achieving your goal.

We would also like to wish you all a Very Happy, Healthy and Successful 2014!

Dr J.E.C. Bennekers

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2014 to all!

All at White House Farm Medical Centre would like to wish you all a


Very Merry Christmas
and a Very
Happy and Healthy
2014!

on behalf of all at White House Farm Medical Centre,

Dr J.E.C. Bennekers

Wednesday 11 September 2013

What is happening at the surgery? Flu Season is coming!

Evening all,

It has been a while since I've posted on here. I however thought it would be a good idea to forewarn everyone that the Flu season is just around the corner. This means that in the near future there will be flu clinics running at our practice again. They will be starting in October, so keep your eyes peeled if you are in the eligible categories to have a flu jab. New this year will also be the vaccinations against shingles. The Department of Health has decided that this year people who are 70 or 79 years old are eligible for this new shingles vaccination. This can potentially be given at the same time as the flu jab.

More details will be coming out soon and you will also be able to find this information on our website at www.whitehousefarmmedical.nhs.uk.

Don't miss out on your flu jab this year if you are in one of the eligible categories.

Dr J.E.C. Bennekers

Monday 1 July 2013

What is happening at the surgery? Order your prescriptions on line, book or cancel appointments online.

Afternoon,

There are some more changes afoot at our practice this week. We hope these changes will be for the better, rather than just another change for change sake, but we are very hopeful they will improve access for our patients and improve our work life perhaps as well.

So, what is about to happen?

This week our website will be enabled to give access to our patients to:

  • Order their repeat prescriptions online
  • Book an appointment online
  • Cancel an appointment online
  • Register as a patient at our practice.
Our practice uses SystmOnline for these services. This will link in directly with our computer system to make this possible. You can see a screenshot of this below. (to see a larger image, please click on the image)


 
 
To be able to use this system, you will need to request a username and password from the practice. Once you are issued with your username and password, by the way you will need one for each member of your family if you wish to use this system for your family, you will be able to access it a short time after (about an hour later).
 
Ordering Repeat Prescriptions
 
In order to request your repeat prescriptions, please scroll down to the bottom of our website page, where you will find the following:
 

 
 
Click on the 'OrderYour Repeat Prescription' tab and it will take you to the logging on screen for SystmOnline. Log on using your username and password issued by the practice and you will be able to choose whether you wish to order a prescription, book an appointment or cancel an appointment .
 
When choosing to order your prescription, this should give you a list of the medication on your medical record, which has been marked for repeat prescribing.
Tick the ones you require and complete the order.
 
Not all medication you have previously been issued with may be marked for repeat prescribing. Sometimes medication has been used as a trial, for a course only or for occasional use. We call these 'acute' prescriptions and they may not be able to be requested online, but may need to be requested directly from the surgery instead. Bear in mind that we do not accept prescription requests over the phone.
 
This will lead to a message being sent to our computer system that you have requested your medication and we will then process this request as appropriate. Unless there are any problems with your request (eg a medication review is required before any further prescription for this item can be issued), you will then be able to collect the prescription form from the surgery within 3 working days.
 
Book an appointment online
 
We have also arranged for some of our appointments to be available for online booking. Just like all our appointments this will only be possible up to a maximum of 10 days in advance for some appointments, other appointments are only available for 'On The Day' booking. However, you do have the opportunity to even book an appointment at the times that our surgery is closed (weekend, night time), hopefully giving you better access to our services.
 
You will again need to register for online services by requesting an username and password from the practice and you will then be set up to access this service as well.
 
On accessing the appointment booking service, you will be able to choose the appointments with the doctor/nurse of choice, if this is available at the time.
 
Please bear the following simple rules in mind when booking an appointment:
 
  • One appointment only allows for one patient to be seen, book one appointment per patient.
  • One appointment only generally allows for one problem to be dealt with appropriately, please book one appointment per problem.
  • If you are aware that your particular problem needs more than just 10 minutes to deal with, please book a double (2 consecutive) appointment.
This is not to cause you any trouble, but to make sure that we can give your problems the attention they need as well as trying to ensure that waiting times in the surgery are kept down to a minimum.
 
Cancel an appointment online
 
Made an appointment, but you can't make it after all? Please cancel your appointment, so the slot can be used by another patient in need of an appointment.
 
You will now also be able to do this online, we are however not sure yet, whether this is only possible for those appointments that have been booked online or also for appointments made in different ways. We hope it will be possible for all appointments booked.
 
Of course it will still be possible to ring us to cancel as well.
 
Register as a patient at our practice online
 
It is also possible to register as a patient with our practice online. It is important to realise that registering through this service does not automatically mean that you are accepted as a patient at our practice. This still relies on the following:
  • Bringing in the registration form to the practice to be processed (you can fill this in and print this off from SystmOnline and sign it, then hand it in at our reception desk)
  • The practice accepting you as a patient. This depends on whether you live within our practice area. We only accept patients who live within our designated practice area.

So, we feel there are some exciting times to come with some great changes that we hope will benefit our patients.
 
Dr J.E.C. Bennekers
 

Monday 17 June 2013

Our Website is now live!

We would like to let you know that our website is now live. You can find the White House Farm Medical Centre Website by clicking on the link in our side banner or by clicking on our name.

A word of caution though, our website is still under development and we will continue to add different sections to it as time goes by. You will now already be able to get some general information regarding opening times, clinics, our team, etc on the website.

Here are a few of the things we aim to add in the future:

  • A link to allow you to book or cancel an appointment online (this will not be possible for all appointments and clinics, but only for a selected number of appointments and clinics. Prior registration for this service is required)
  • A link to allow you to order your repeat prescriptions online. We currently have our repeat prescriptions online service through Doncaster NHS, but we aim to do this via SystemOnline on our website in future. This service links directly with our computer system leading to a more streamlined service for you and us.
  • We are considering adding online registrations to our website as well.
So, do have a look around our website, we hope you will find it helpful and are grateful for any feedback and any suggestions for further improvement you may have.

Dr J.E.C. Bennekers