Date published: 28 November 2023
Open day for community at Upper Eden Medical Practice provided health checks and an introduction to a variety of patient services.
The event supported by Cumbria Health on Call (CHoC) took place on 14 November 2023 and showcased the work taking place at Upper Eden Medical Practice which is located in Kirkby Stephen and is part of the Eden Primary Care Network (PCN).
Sam Gargett, Project Manager for Primary Care Services North Cumbria said: "It's a fabulous event for patients for patients to be able to come down, meet members of the team, see how the practice works and see all the fantastic resources that they can access through their practice. Whether that be if they phone the practice, they've seen a clinician, or they've requested a consultation via the online app.
"I think it's really useful for patients to be able to meet and greet and see some of the services that are on offer. I think it helps to breakdown some barriers so when they're offered access to those services they have more of an understanding of where they are being referred."
Kirsty Jay, Business Manager for CHoC said: "We want to speak to the patients to see if there's anything we can do to improve our services, what they would like to see made available to them and we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to have those conversations with them.
"We are also wanting to inform patients of services that are available through the practice, also that are available through the community for them to access, some of those organisations are actually here today."
The event also featured the MELISSA bus which provided patients with an opportunity of receiving a free health check while they were visiting.
Susan Blakemore, Chief Executive of CHoC said: "Part of our rationale for the open day was to make sure they understand who Cumbria Health on Call are and that we are not just some temporary arrangement that have come in to sort things out because there has been a change in GPs who used to run the practice. So we wanted to raise the profile but do something very positive for this population.
"So part of today is about introductions but part of it is to showcase all the really good work that goes on here at Upper Eden as a practice. So they've been through a CQC inspection recently and came out as 'Good' across all areas and we do strive to provide high quality care across all our surgeries. There has been a lot in the media about access, been a lot about appointments and we want to show the population that there is different ways to access appointments as well. We've had staff showing how you can onboard and access your digital records and how some of the digital capabilities that we can provide can also enhance your own individual health care."
A huge range of organisations were represented at the event and provided information to the patients who came to visit. This included members of the iCAT team (Integrated Community Ageing Team), LINK team, Sexual Health services from North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, Grow Well, Nutrition Coaching and many more.
An expanded version of the highlights video is also available below with further information included of the event.
