COVID-19 Vaccinations

Now that more doses of Covid-19 vaccines are available, the NHS is able to open more vaccination services, including the first Vaccination Centres.

People who are eligible and who live near these new vaccination services will receive letters from the NHS Covid-19 Vaccination Booking Service, telling them how they can book their appointment.

The NHS is rolling out additional services quickly, but it remains important that the public don’t try to book or go to these services before they receive their booking letter.

And when you do book an appointment, please make sure you attend.

You may receive a letter from the national NHS Covid-19 Vaccination Booking Service inviting you to book an appointment at a regional Vaccination Centre, the closest of which is at Robetson House, Stevenage.

If you receive the letter from the national service and can travel to the Vaccination Centre safely, we recommend that you book using the details the letter provides.

If you are unable or don’t want to go to a Vaccination Centre, you can choose to wait and get your vaccination at Chesham Town Hall, which is the local vaccination hub for patients in this area.

We have started vaccinating patients over the age of 80 years of age and are inviting people in according to the criteria and prioritisation set by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), and will contact you when it’s your turn.

Amersham Health Centre (via Chesham Town Hall) COVID-19 Vaccinations

We will be administering the first COVID-19 vaccinations (Pfizer BioNTech) to 975 of our most vulnerable patients from Weds 6th January, at Chesham Town Hall. 

NHS England has advised that our initial priority is to vaccinate those who are aged 80 years old and older. However, the vaccination supply is limited (975 doses) and this will not be enough to vaccinate all our patients aged over 80 in the first instance.

Therefore each practice will contact their most vulnerable patients within this group, and directly book them an appointment. Please be reassured ALL eligible patients, who wish to receive a COVID-19 vaccination will receive one in due course. 

As soon as further supplies become available, you will be duly contacted. NHS England has requested that patients do not contact practices to book the vaccination and we would ask you to adhere to this request in order to keep phone lines available for patients needing our care. 

We recognise you may feel disappointed if you are not contacted for this vaccination. However, we do appreciate your patience and understanding in working together to deliver this important vaccination programme. 

Thank you - Mid Chilterns Vaccination Collaboration.

Welcome to The Surgery, Amersham Health Centre. We hope that you will find this website useful. We aim to provide a high standard of medical and nursing care for all our patients, with a strong emphasis on disease prevention, health education and self-help. There is much that you, the patient, can do to maintain your own good health and the aim of this website is:

To help you - by giving useful information about the services we offer and advice on how to manage minor illness in the home.

To help us - by making cleer how our services can best be used.

To help us to help you - by encouraging a team approach between the practice and the patients.

In an emergency, when we are closed, please phone Bucks 24/7 on 0300 033

988 for medical advice or to see a doctor urgently 

What to expect when you call your GP surgery for an appointment

Our reception team are here to help you as always and will initially book you a telephone consultation with the Doctor or Nurse, depending on your requirements.

You will be given a timed slot and the GP will endevour to call you back within 1 hour of that slot.  The call comes through as a withheld number so please ensure you pick up or you will be required to rebook which obviously wastes valuable appointments.

We may ask you to send a photo prior to your telephone appointment.  The request comes through as a text message request so please provide us with a mobile number and permission to contact you via text as this speeds up the process.

The doctor may also arrange for a video conference, this will be arranged between yourself and the doctor at the time of the telephone consultation.

Should the Doctor or Nurse wish you come in for a face to face appointment, Blood Test or other procedure, you will be asked to follow these guidelines:

1. Come to the main entrance and enter through the automatic doors.  Please do not continue into the surgery without ringing the bell.  Please ring the doorbell once and wait for reception to come and take your details to check you in on the system.  You will need to step back from the door to allow us to speak to you at the safe 2 meters distance.

2. The receptionist will either show you to the Doctors waiting area which is both limited by number and 2 meter spacing or the Nurses waiting area which is again limited by number and spacing. 

3. The Doctor or Nurse will then come and collect you themselves.  They will have the correct PPE on and we would ask that you also wear a face covering.

4. Please follow the one way system in the building.

5. You will be shown out of the building following a one way system.

Please be assured that we always have our staff and patient’s safety and welfare at the heart of all our procedures and will adapt them accordingly.  Thank you for your assistance. 

Prescriptions

We are trying to minimise patients requesting repeat prescriptions using paper request slips so whenever possible please either: 

Request online through our Patient Access service. If you are not registered online, please contact the surgery to ask how to register.

Request through our website: www.ahc.co.ukv - via the tab Repeat Prescriptions.  Fill the form out and submit to the surgery. 

We will send your prescription to your nominated pharmacy, where you can collect it.

If you don’t have a nominated a pharmacy, please chose which pharmacy you would like to collect it from and let us know.

If you do not nominate a pharmacy, your prescription will be sent to Collins & Jervie shop on Amersham High Street, (next to M&S).

This is a challenging time for us all, your understanding and co-operation is greatly appreciated during this period of uncertainty.  

Our priority is the health and safety of all our patients and staff.

Thank you.

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We are now using Chain SMS to message patients!

Chain SMS allows us to send text messages to patients. It means we can be much more proactive with communication, messaging you quickly and securely, so you are not waiting around to hear from us!

Some examples of how we might use it…

Reminders of notifications (eg prescription ready)

Responding to simple queries (eg if you had a quick question about your medication)

Letting you know we tried to call

Send you advice at the end of a consultation

The practice name will always be at the bottom of the message. You won’t be able to reply to them. Please help us to help you by keeping your number up to date. If you don’t want us to contact you in this way please let us know.

Improved Access to GP Appointments

An improved service to access GP appointments has launched in Buckinghamshire and is available to all patients registered with a Bucks GP. This service involves local GP practices working together to offer patients better access to appointments. It means that you can now book an appointment in a practice local to you:

Up until 8pm from Monday to Friday (Amersham Health Centre - Wednesday)

Selected hours on a Saturday (Amersham Health Centre 1 in 8 Saturdays)

9am until 1pm on Sunday and Bank Holidays (at one of the three Improved Access Hubs located across the county)

This should mean that patients also have greater flexibility for routine, bookable appointments. It is, however, not a walk-in service. If you need urgent medical advice after 6.30pm or at a weekend, please phone NHS 111 in the first instance – they will be able to advise you and book an appointment if necessary.

These appointments can be booked through the practice you are registered with, and are being offered from three Improved Access Hubs, located at:

High Wycombe Hospital: (located at the Urgent Treatment Centre or UTC) Queen Alexander Road, High Wycombe, HP11 2TT

Stoke Mandeville Hospital: Corridor 5, Gate 2, Mandeville Road, Stoke Mandeville, HP21 8AL

Threeways Surgery: Pennylets Green, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, SL2 4AZ