The doctors and staff at North Cardiff Medical Centre are proud to offer the highest standard of patient-centred healthcare.  We are a progressive primary care organisation focused on providing high-quality services and care for our patients.

The practice is a general partnership comprising of seven GP partners. We work from two sites: Excalibur Drive and 67 Thornhill Road and are recognised as a leading Undergraduate 'Training practice' affiliated to the Wales College of Medicine Cardiff to provide undergraduate education.

We run many clinics for the management of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes and offer a wide variety of other medical services including antenatal and postnatal care, minor surgery, childhood vaccinations and well-person check-ups.

The NHS Wales App is available across Wales. Access to GP services on the App is being rolled out in phases.

Before you start

To use the NHS Wales App you must be registered with a GP in Wales.

You will also need to set up an NHS login - you may have already created this if you downloaded the Covid Pass.

You can access NHS Wales services such as NHS 111 Wales health advice and blood and organ donation, as well as surgery specific services such as appointments and prescription ordering using the App.

To access GP services online via the App, you must:

• Be 16 years old or over 
• Have a unique email address 
• Have a UK phone number 
• Have photo identification 
• Be registered with a GP practice in Wales 

Download the NHS Wales App from your Google Play or Apple App store, or on your desktop browser via app.nhs.wales (or click on the image opposite). 

PLEASE NOTE - The surgery is unable to provide technical support for the app. for Help and Support please visit:

NHS Wales App: Help and Support

Help patients access the “Right Care, First Time”

This video explains why you don’t always need to see the GP.

General practice is facing unprecedented pressure. Demand is exceeding capacity, patients are facing longer delays and abuse in practice is rising as a result.

Our Care Navigators are trained to direct you to the most appropriate service for your needs, which might not always be a GP. This will free up appointments for patients who will need to see a GP with their problem and can often save the patient time waiting for treatment. 

We have received a number of calls from patients asking if a text they have received is genuinely from the surgery. 

The surgery often communicates to patients via SMS/text and these sometimes include links to online forms our clinicial team may need you to complete. 

These text messages come from Cardiff and Vale Health Board number. This number is 07860063962 and is a safe number. 

We would always advice patients to be vigilant when opening links received via SMS containing links and if you are ever wish to check if the surgery has sent you the message please call. 

Information for patients

Face to face and telephone consultations:

We will continue to provide a mix of in person and telephone consultations to meet the wishes of our patients. We recognise that many patients prefer to be seen in a traditional way in person but that many patients may also prefer a telephone consultation. 

If requesting a telephone consultation please be aware that although this may occur any time during the morning or afternoon session, this is still a booked appointment and you need to be available to answer your phone. 

Please do not book telephone consultations for conditions where you are likely to need a physical examination as this may take up another appointment which could have been offered to someone else.

Prebookable appointments: we are also now able to offer some prebookable appointments, both telephone and face to face, and these may be booked online (Patients need to be registered for the "My Health Online" Service, find more information here) or by phone in the usual way.

Access:

We are aware that one of the most frustrating aspects of seeking medical advice from a GP is getting through on the phone to make the appointment in the first place. We are therefore trying to improve this aspect of our service in various ways:

1. We have reactivated my health on line as a way of booking appointments online without using the telephone. You need to register to use this service but prepandemic many patients found it very useful and easier to use than trying repeatedly to get through on the phones
2. If requesting a doctors note/sick note please use the online request form (Available Here) This contains the information the GP needs to issue it. If the GP needs more information or is not able to issue it they will contact you on the telephone number you have given. Sick notes are completed at the end of morning surgery. If you are not contacted you may collect the note from Excalibur drive after 5pm of the day after you have submitted the request. Please do not ring to check it is ready as this blocks phone lines which may be needed for urgent medical consultations.
3. We also have online forms for asthma and copd reviews, medication reviews, and for pill repeats. Please use these wherever possible as it is more efficient for patients and the service alike.
4. We are now asking patients to collect their medication direct from pharmacies rather than collecting the prescription from the surgery. There are several reasons for this: if our reception staff are searching for prescriptions they cannot also be answering phones and so sending all prescriptions direct to the pharmacy should help this. If your prescription goes direct to the pharmacy the pharmacy can dispense it in advance so you do not need to take it there yourself and wait for it to be prepared.
5. If you are ringing with a query which does not need a consultation such as blood results, private forms etc then please avoid ringing before 11am when the phones are most busy with patients booking appointments for that day.

Alternatives to GP:

Please also be aware that, as with everywhere else in the country, demand for GP appointments outstrips supply. Several additional non GP services have been set up to help manage this demand, and we would encourage our patients to use these first wherever possible:

1.  The Choose pharmacy scheme should be used wherever possible and many pharmacies can now treat ear infections, urinary tract infections, sore throats and prescribe oral contraceptives without you seeing a GP (click here to find out which services your local pharmacy can offer).
2. We have a physiotherapist assessment service who you can see instead of a GP for musculoskeletal problems. They can diagnose, treat, prescribe and refer as appropriate. 
3. We also have a Mental Health Practitioner who you may see for mental health problems instead of a GP and these appointments can be booked with reception in the usual way. 
4. All dental and eye problems should go to the dentist and optician respectively. 
5. If you or an elderly relative requires more help/ care in the home then please ring independent living services on 02920 234234, the GP cannot provide these services.

Other services are available via the links below. 

"Choose Well" - NHS 111 service (for information regarding Choose Pharmacy)

"Primary Choice" - Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (to help patients take the best route to treat their condition)

Find your local Pharmacy

Find your local Optician

Find your local Sexual Health Clinic

Hospital waiting times:

We would also like to remind patients that we cannot provide accident and emergency services. If you have chest pain, signs of a stroke, etc then you need to call 999. We appreciate that ambulance waiting times are an issue at the moment but we cannot change that.

Many GP appointments each week are used up with injuries which need to go to the hospital for X-rays to exclude fractures, we appreciate that waiting times in A + E are long but we are not able to provide this service in GP and you will only be advised to contact the hospital anyway.

Many appointments per week are also used up by patients who are either waiting to be seen at the hospital or who are chasing hospital results. Please be advised that NHS hospital waiting lists are extremely long at the moment and we as GPs cannot expedite your appointment unless there has been a significant change in your condition and even then the decision is made by the hospital not the GP.

Please also do not ring the GP for the results of investigations requested by the hospital. It is a GMC (General Medical Council) responsibility that the Doctor ordering an investigation deals with the results and so any queries about these investigations should be made to the consultants secretary not the GP. This is also true for any enquiries about hospital follow up appointments.

Respect:

Please treat our members of staff with respect. Despite some media reports, they have all worked extremely hard during the last few years in often difficult conditions. We appreciate that waiting times in the NHS are frustrating for patients and relatives when they are worried but please do not take this frustration out on our staff. Any abuse whether in person or on line makes staff more likely to leave their roles and makes it harder to recruit replacements, and staff shortages (of which there are record numbers in the NHS at the current time) result in an even worse service. 

We hope this information is useful and we can all work together to ensure that you (our patients) are seen by the right service in as timely a manner as possible

The Partners

NCMC

** Asthma / COPD Bulletin **

North Cardiff Medical Centre are trying to improve the way we manage your Asthma / COPD and reduce our carbon footprint!

Health Hub Wales has developed new Apps for Asthma and COPD that are now available to download for free! You can record your peak flow readings and management plan here. It also has useful videos on inhaler technique and other educational videos that will help you to manage your asthma effectively.

You can download the App here: https://healthhub.wales

How Eco-friendly are your inhalers?

Did you know that inhalers contribute to around 4% of the total NHS carbon footprint?

The reason for this is that many inhalers contain a propellant which is a powerful greenhouse gas. These are called metered-dose inhalers ‘MDIs’.

NHS Wales wants to reduce the use of MDIs to less than 20% by 2025. 

Here’s an example: 1 x Ventolin Evohaler = a 175-mile car journey

There are lots of ways that you can help:

1. Make sure that you are on the right preventer therapy - If you need to use your salbutamol (reliever) more than three times a week, then you may need a higher dose or different preventer. If this is the case, please let us know and we will review your medication. 
2. Consider switching to dry powder inhalers or alternatives containing smaller amounts of harmful gases. 
3. Make sure your inhaler technique is correct. 
4. Please return used inhalers to a local pharmacy for responsible disposal.
5. Please attend your annual review! 

PLEASE DO NOT STOP YOUR INHALERS. If you are interested in making the switch to an eco-friendly inhaler or want to review your medication please speak to one of our specialist nurses or doctors. 

“If I die, it will be your fault” is just one of the abusive comments heard by GP reception staff at the practice, as a new survey launched today shows 75% of staff across the country experience daily abuse from patients.

A new campaign video, launched by the Institute of General Practice Management (IGPM) (IGPM) aims to help end all abuse towards general practice staff. The video includes real-life examples of patient interactions from practices across the UK, including:

• GP staff whose tyres were slashed by a patient who had not been able to get an appointment that day;
• A receptionist with Chinese heritage, who received racist abuse and was spat on in relation to the Covid-19 virus;
• Daily verbal threats including the common phrase: “If I die, it will be your fault”.

Research launched today shows the majority of practice staff (78%) have faced threatening behaviour, racist or sexist abuse from patients, and 83% reporting having called the police for help.

As demand for services at the practice has increased dramatically over the last year, sadly so has the amount of abuse our practice staff have faced.

We’re taking part in this national campaign to highlight the good work practices like ours are doing, and make a plea to the public to be patient with our staff, instead of attacking them. We’ve worked throughout the pandemic and have done our absolute best to support patients. We’re calling for the abuse to end now.

The survey of 571 GP practice managers showed that 83% have had to remove a patient from the surgery due to multiple incidents towards their team. Other recent research from an NHS Staff Survey showed that 14.9% of respondents had been subjected to physical violence while in work.  Much abuse goes unreported and national annual data on physical assaults against NHS staff are no longer published. The ‘If I die it will be your fault’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the zero-tolerance approach to abuse and encourage all practice staff to feel confident about reporting incidents.

My Health Online

Request for a My Health Online Account.pdf

If the answer is YES, we have an induction loop system at our Excalibur Drive site and a portable system at Thornhill Road.  If you wish to utilise the portable facility, please advise when you telephone or attend reception.

We have an agreement with Sainsbury's that entitles our patients to park in the car park for the duration of their business with the practice.  Should you have any difficulty, please inform reception in the first instance.