The NHS employs over a million staff in thousands of locations. It is a large and complex organisation providing a broad range of services. It is not surprising that sometimes you or a loved one may feel bewildered or concerned when using the NHS. And this can be at times when you are feeling at your most vulnerable and anxious.

So, what should you do if you want on the spot help when using the health service? The NHS expects all members of staff to listen and respond to you to the best of their ability. But sometimes, you may wish to talk to someone employed especially to help you. The Patient Advice and Liaison Service, known as PALS, has been introduced to ensure that the NHS listens to patients, their relatives, carers and friends, and answers their questions and resolves their concerns as quickly as possible.

PALS also helps the NHS to improve services by listening to what matters to patients and their loved ones and making changes, when appropriate.

What does PALS do?

In particular, PALS will:

• Provide you with information about the NHS and help you with any other health-related enquiry
• Help resolve concerns or problems when you are using the NHS
• Provide information about the NHS complaints procedure and how to get independent help if you decide you may want to make a complaint
• Provide you with information and help introduce you to agencies and support groups outside the NHS
• Inform you about how you can get more involved in your own healthcare and the NHS locally
• Improve the NHS by listening to your concerns, suggestions and experiences and ensuring that people who design and manage services are aware of the issues you raise
• Provide an early warning system for NHS Trusts and monitoring bodies by identifying problems or gaps in services and reporting them.

Find out more

If you would like more information about PALS, the functions it is intended to provide and the standards it should strive to achieve, follow this link.

If you require any vaccinations relating to foreign travel you need to make an appointment with the practice nurse or you can ring any Tuesday afternoon between 3.30pm-4pm to discuss your travel arrangements. This will include which countries and areas within countries that you are visiting to determine what vaccinations are required. There is further information about countries and vaccinations required on the links below

Europe & Russia	North America
Central America	South America
Caribbean	Africa
Middle East	Central Asia
East Asia	Australasia and Pacific

It is important to make this initial appointment as early as possible – at least 6 weeks before you travel – as a second appointment will be required with the practice nurse to actually receive the vaccinations. These vaccines have to be ordered as they are not a stock vaccine. Your second appointment needs to be at least 2 weeks before you travel to allow the vaccines to work.

Some travel vaccines are ordered on a private prescription and these incur a charge over and above the normal prescription charge. This is because not all travel vaccinations are included in the services provided by the NHS.

Travel Health Questionnaire

To help us offer the appropriate advice, please fill out the online form before coming to see the nurse.

Anyone considering starting a family should contact the surgery and arrange preconception counselling with one of our GPs. Care and advice at this time is important because your health at the time of conception and in the early stages of pregnancy has an impact on the rest of your life. It can also affect the health of your children.

Our counselling helps identify and manage your physical and mental health conditions, as well as social needs you might have before you get pregnant. Together with your partner, you can get advice about any potential risks to help you make plans and take decisions about conception and pregnancy. Advice and counselling may be able to help reduce or remove these risks.

At the very minimum we would always recommend that women seeking to become pregnancy should supplement with Folic Acid at least three months before conception and for the first three weeks of pregnancy.

The Practice Nursing team will contact patients with any abnormal results – our policy is no news is good news.