Doctors - Spring Orchard Surgery
We are extremely lucky to have the convenience of a doctors' surgery in our village providing excellent care and a prescription service. The Spring Orchard Surgery is one of four surgeries making up the Orchard Practice.
They function as four individual units providing select personal care to families. As a larger cohesive group of surgeries they provide up to date comprehensive facilities. They can also share their individual expertise as clinicians, leading to a higher standard of care. They are highly active within the Primary Care Network, to co-ordinate and improve local services.
Mission Statement
"We aim to provide comprehensive, caring family medicine of the best quality to all our patients in a friendly and confidential environment."
Opening Hours
Contact the surgery by telephone between 08:00 and 18:30 Monday to Friday and we can then arrange a Face to Face review as needed. Please note that whilst the building itself may be closed during some parts of the day, this telephone service is always available.
PLEASE NOTE - As from 10 Oct the Tuesday evening opening has changed to THURSDAY.
Saturday Closed
Sunday Closed
Dispensary Opening Hours
The dispensary will be open 08:30-12:00 and then 17:00-18:30 on Monday, Tuesday and Friday.
Out of Hours Service
Call 999 in an emergency or 111 if not.
SPRING ORCHARD SURGERY REPORT 2021 - 22
Practice issues
There have been significant changes in the Spring Orchard team over the last 12 months.
Tony Clarke retired after over 40 years of General Practice. He has been replaced by Dr Francoise van Dorp on Tuesdays.
Kathryn McCleod-Jones resigned earlier in the year, taking a break from practice nursing to be able to support her children at a key point in their education. She has been replaced by Sarah Fry, and Mandy Newland
Our Friday dispenser, Georgie, left to pursue her dream job, working with primates at Paignton zoo. She has been replaced by Sharon who works at the Wilton branch of the practice for the remainder of the week.
COVID issues
We have had a challenging year, with an ongoing and sustained increase in workload as we continue to recover from the turmoil of the COVID pandemic. We continue to contact all patients by phone before arranging face to face appointments – this has allowed us to prioritise care for those who need face to face appointments at the most appropriate time with the most appropriate member of staff. Telephone triage has allowed the practice to cope with at least double the number of requests for appointments compared to pre-pandemic.
In the last week we have re-opened the waiting-room for those patients who prefer to wait inside before their appointment. All patients continue to be given the option to wait in the car and be called in by buzzer if they are more comfortable with this.
General System issues
You will all be aware from news reports about the pressure on all services within the NHS .
For patients at Fovant surgery these are the issues which seem to be a particular problem at present:
-
Hospital waiting times are long, and a significant proportion of our queries from patients are about issues connected with delays in hospital care.
-
Mental health services are under severe pressure since the pandemic.
-
The community nursing team is overstretched due to a general increase in patient need.
-
Rapid access nursing support is very difficult to obtain when patients need urgent nursing care at home. This means some patients are admitted to hospital as there is no way for them to remain at home safely.
-
There are long delays for finding staff for longer term care packages funded by Wiltshire council, this is leading to delays in discharge from hospital, and occasionally patients are sent home with insufficient care and support, so are readmitted to hospital.
-
Patients and their families struggle to find private carers locally.
-
Medication supply for certain medications has been erratic with unpredictable shortages of certain commonly prescribed medications.
These system issues have an impact on many of our patients, which in turn has increased the complexity and challenges of providing good GP care, as we are often asked to help cover gaps in service provision.
Despite this, morale is surprisingly high at the practice, and we continue to do our best to help care for the people of Fovant. According to the annual GP Practice Survey our patient satisfaction rates remain some of the highest in Wiltshire, and we continue to provide significantly faster access to care compared with other practices across the county.
Dr Lindsay Kinlin
GP The Orchard Partnership
01722 714789
USE IT or LOSE IT!
Our Local Fovant Dispensary
