As you may have seen the Covid-19 vaccination programme is now concentrating on inviting younger age groups to nationally run vaccination sites through the NHS National Booking Service. As the numbers requiring first vaccination reduces, we have reviewed the capacity needed for the remainder of the vaccination programme. In addition the vaccination site that we have been using at the Forum, Northallerton is now keen to return to hosting events as we progress along the Government’s roadmap to a more normal life.

The Hambleton Primary Care Networks have therefore taken the decision to move out of the Forum from 21^st June 2021 to allow the site to get back to ‘business as usual’ and also to allow our practices to place an increased emphasis on GP services after a period of intense vaccination delivery.

All patients who received their first vaccination at the site and are due a second dose of their vaccination prior to this date in June will attend their appointment at the Forum and those due a second vaccination after that date will, instead, be invited to a GP practice site. Your practice will be in touch if the venue for your second vaccination has changed so there is no need to contact the surgery.

For patients still requiring their 1^st vaccination, these will continue to take place in the Northallerton area and will be delivered through the National Booking Service at a site operated by a local pharmacy. It is anticipated that this site will be operational from 2^nd June.

IF YOU HAD YOUR FIRST VACCINE AT THE FORUM BEFORE THE 12th of MAY AND HAVE NOT YET BOOKED YOUR SECOND VACCINE PLEASE CONTACT THE RECEPTION TEAM ON 01845523157.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Forum for their support over the last 6 months and also all our staff, volunteers and community partners. Our phenomenal success would not have been possible without them.

We as a practice, have remained seeing patients face to face on a medical need basis throughout the whole pandemic. Accessing the surgery has been in a different way but if someone has needed to be seen, they have been.  Changes were brought in to protect the staff to ensure continuity of service we deliver to our patients. We will continue to deliver telephone consultations where appropriate and to telephone triage too. We need to keep patient numbers in the surgery to a minimum to keep you and us safe however if you need to be seen, the clinician will ensure this is done in a safe way.

Our GPs, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, Health Care Assistants and many other team members have all seen people throughout the last 15 months and this is not going to change.

Our workload has increased hugely since this time last year, and our staff and GP’s have also been helping to deliver over 60,000 Covid vaccines at the Forum since January.

Please understand that every member of the practice team has gone above and beyond their job,  to ensure that patients get the best possible care that we can deliver.

We do not have any control over hospital appointments or operations so please don’t shout at us if you can’t get what you need else where in the system- we understand your frustrations as we have to try to navigate the system on a daily basis, often with the same outcomes as you.

There is a lot of negative comments on Social Media and in the press at the moment but we can assure you we’ve been through the same things that you have in this pandemic whilst working harder than ever before and a patient being rude or demanding can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

We  ask that you be kind to anyone you come in to contact with at the surgery – we are trying our best to make sure every patient gets what they need and the many, many lovely patients we speak to make the job very worthwhile. ”