Plan your repeat prescriptions ahead of bumper May bank holidays, says chief nurse

The month of May will see us celebrating the Coronation and three bank holidays and we are urging people to be prepared by planning repeat prescriptions and ‘Think which service?’ they need should they require medical help.

Every bank holiday, NHS 111 sees an increase in people contacting the service having run out of essential medication and needing an urgent repeat prescription. You can avoid this by getting organised now, and order and collect prescriptions in time.

Our emergency departments (ED) are extremely busy but more so during bank holidays, so it is crucial to know which local health service to use and when. It will ensure that you will get the right help at the right time should you need any health care.

EDs are for genuinely life-threatening emergencies – for example chest pains or severe bleeding or burns. If you have a life-threatening illness or injury please continue to dial 999.

If you have an urgent but not life-threatening medical need over the bank holiday, please visit www.111.nhs.uk. NHS 111 online is available to signpost people to the best option for their care needs – it can provide the most appropriate local treatment option for medical issues, saving an unnecessary trip to ED.

You can find out more about the services available on the Think Which Service website shropshiretelfordandwrekin.nhs.uk/your-health/think-which-service

We are putting the spotlight on the work that is taking place across health and social care as part of Experience of Care Week, which runs until Friday.

Our Trust embraces being able to collaborate on ideas and improvements with patients, families and communities to keep improving their experiences of care.

Feedback from patients and carers is so important to us and we use that information to shape our services, the care provided and patient experience, at both hospital sites.

I co-chair a Patient and Carer Experience (PaCE) Panel with Greg Smith, a patient representative.

The panel brings together patients and colleagues to focus on the patient, carer and public voice within our Trust, listen to these experiences, celebrate good practice and take action to continuously improve services and the care it provides.

Greg and I would like to thank all the teams for the work they do to improve the experience of care delivered to our patients.

One of our patient representatives, Lynn Pickavance, supports the Trust in a number of roles and activities.

Lynn says that playing an active part in the above roles gives her the opportunity to make a real difference to the experience of patients.

She may not be “hands on”, for example, by helping on a ward or supporting patients in ED, but the “behind the scenes” roles are just as important for helping us to make improvements.

For more information about how to get involved visit our website (Speciality Patient Experience Groups - SaTH), call the Patient Experience Team on 01743 261000 ext 3032 or email sath.patientexperience@nhs.net

Today marks National Administrative Professional Day and I would like to thank my administrative colleagues for all their work ‘behind the scenes’, assisting our clinical colleagues.

They play a huge role for patients and colleagues, handling appointments, managing workload and paperwork.