Coronavirus Information

Keeping our Patients Safe and our Staff Able to Work

Appointments, Telephone Triage and Reducing Footfall

Before the onset of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Frithwood Surgery would see around 300-400 patients, staff and visitors come through its doors each day. However, since the outbreak, we have been forced to reduce this number to nearly zero to ensure that you, our staff and particularly our vulnerable patients remain as safe and healthy as possible.

At present, if you phone to request an appointment, our reception team will, where appropriate, offer you a call-back from a GP or practice nurse. The GP or nurse will discuss with you the best course of action for your treatment and, if you need to attend the practice, the best time of day for an appointment.

Other measures are also in place to reduce footfall. Where possible, patients will be seen at our drive-thru marquee in the main car park. Additionally, a window is open to access our dispensary and a secure letter box for prescription requests can be found at this location.

We would like to apologise for any inconvenience these measures are causing and will continue to do our very best to keep you informed of subsequent changes during these extraordinary times.

Prescriptions and Dispensary

Where possible, Frithwood Surgery is seeking to reduce footfall to the practice in order to keep patients and staff safe. We are therefore asking you to follow these guidelines for prescriptions:

  • Please continue to order repeat prescriptions on your due date
  • We will not accept requests for ‘3 months’ or any additional amounts
  • Please order online or via frithwood.scripts@nhs.net
  • If you have no alternative but to drop your prescription request at the surgery, please leave it in the secure green box, which is located outside by the new dispensary window hatch
  • If you are collecting medication, please ring the bell at the new dispensary window hatch and one of our team will serve you as soon as they become free

Car Park Drive-thru

If you have passed the surgery recently, you may have seen our ‘new and improved’ drive-thru facility. Rumours that the other one blew down ‘might’ be exaggerated!

This facility is actually a crucial addition to our efforts to reduce practice footfall and therefore keep our patients and staff safe.

Where it is crucial that a clinician sees a patient face-to-face (e.g. for a vital blood test, etc.), you may be asked to use the drive-thru facility where a clinician will carry out their work whilst you remain in your car.

This is not a ‘general’ service. It is only for patients where a clinician thinks it suitable. Equally, it is definitely not for suspected COVID-19 cases or testing for COVID-19.

What to Do If You Have Coronavirus Symptoms

Please do not come to the surgery if you have Coronavirus symptoms.

Please follow NHS England advice, which can be found via www.111.nhs.uk.

You can also call 111, but please use the website if you can easily access the internet.

FAQ’s For People at Highest Clinical Risk From COVID-19

The latest information from NHS England regarding frequently asked questions from people at highest risk, please see the Background and FAQs for Patients leaflet.

Frithwood Surgery on Facebook

If you use Facebook, please like our page where regular updates will be posted.

Useful and Important Links

Dr Dawn Harper

Frithwood Surgery is very lucky that one of our GPs, Dr Dawn Harper, is in regular contact with the government and runs a popular website that has many interesting articles about the current coronavirus pandemic, including some frequently asked questions about the virus and a very interesting look at some ‘Coronavirus Fake News’ and the real truths behind them: