Thornley House Medical Centre

What help is available to support you in caring for yourself and your family?

The Practice website has a dedicated Self Care section which you can visit here

It really is worth reviewing the self care section and looking at the many resources that you will find. This may help you to understand how you can look after yourself better.

Practice Services is also a good place to start. This might even help you understand how to approach a problem that you already suffer with.

We have provided information on a range of conditions including hypertension (high blood pressure), heart disease, diabetes and depression; an example of something that is part of normal life (e.g. pregnancy) and also preventative measures to help you to stay well and healthy (immunisations).

The practice
We are here wherever possible to improve your health and to help you to better understand the treatment you may be receiving. All the services we offer at the Practice can be found in these web pages and if there is anything you are unsure of or would like further information on, then please contact the Practice and one of our reception staff will be able to assist you.

Out of Hours Service - GoToDoc www.gotodoc.co.uk
If you telephone the Practice when we are closed, you will get an answering machine with the telephone number for the Out-of-Hours service. The service is run by an organisation called GoToDoc and the telephone number is:

0161 785 0805 - Out of Hours

There is always a doctor or nurse available but please remember the out of hours service do NOT have access to your medical records and a full medical history may need to be taken either over the phone or should you visit the Out of Hours. You may have to read out or show them what you can see on your computer screen!

NHS Direct. 0845-4647 or www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
The portal to good quality general advice about your health. It is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and is a good alternative place to contact if you are unable to contact the practice. We recommend this be the first place you look for information about your health if there is something you do not understand and cannot wait for the practice.

NHS Choices www.nhs.uk
This is an excellent website which has a wealth of information about your health and well-being as well as information about common conditions and the choices that you may wish to consider. It also gives you information about local doctors, clinics and hospitals and is another good place to look for high quality information.

HealthSpace www.healthspace.nhs.uk
This is your FREE personal health space provided by the NHS where you can record your personal information securely and access it anytime and from anywhere in the world where you can access the internet. You can record such things as your weight or blood pressure or what medications you are on or what allergies you suffer with. You can keep health notes or record what your lifestyle is ike and what you would like to do which you can then share with your doctor or nurse if you like by opening up your web page with them or printing it out before your consultation- that could be a very useful discussion to have with your clinician.

Below is a video showing how you can record your own blood pressures on HealthSpace and then save them as a PDF file or a Word Document if you like.

Map of Medicine Map of Medicine

Here are national patient pathways for a range of conditions that you can view. They start with a symptom or a suspected problem that you may present to your GP or other clinician with. They show you what sorts of symptoms you may have, what examination findings you may have, what other conditions might also present like this (differential diagnosis) and what investigations can be carried out. You can then see a range of options for treatments that may be offered and what these might entail. This may include referral into secondary care (hospital setting usually) and again what tests may be carried out there and what options you may have. The colour of the boxes changes from green to blue when you change from primary care (GP surgery) to secondary care (hospital). This is the knowledge management tool for staff working in the NHS. It is being rolled out gradually now (so not all doctors and nurses have seen it). There is a vast amount of knowledge here. So much so that the clinician looking after you may not have read the most recent version either. But it is up-to-date and has the evidence based behind it explaining why certain courses of action could be taken. Most importantly, it helps you to understand what choices you may have if you know where you are on the pathway. You can also check your own medical record if you have access to it to see if there is anything more that can be done for you. Sometimes you may find things in the Map of Medicine which your doctor explains are not available for you because of the way local health services are organised. It is still worth asking "why not?" and then perhaps asking how you might be able to get that option.

Choose and Book

When patients get referred to a hospital (or some other providers) we use a system called Choose and Book to see what hospitals appontments are available so that the doctor or the patient can then book the first appointment at a time and place that is convenient for the patient. We hope to make further information available soon on the practice website to explain this process and what it means for you and how it is done

Patient UK www.patient.co.uk
This is a web-portal which gives you access to other web-sites on almost any health related problem.

Tameside & Glossop Primary Care Trust - www.tamesideandglossop.nhs.uk
Tameside & Glossop Primary Care Trust's websites gives you a wealth of information about what healthcare is available across Tameside and Glossop for its residents. It also gives you further information about how local health care services are organised and how the organisation is trying to meet the needs of the local population. You can see the minutes for various committee meetings and begin to understand how local decisions are being taken. Perhaps you might find something that you want to get involved with personally which helps us all do even better!

Moving from Patient to Person - the Expert Patient Programme www.expertpatients.co.uk

If you live with a long-term illness, why not take control by becoming an Expert Patient. The Expert Patients Programme is a self-management course giving people the confidence, skills and knowledge to manage their condition better and be more in control of their lives.

Other useful links

www.labtestsonline.org.uk
This is an excellent web-site which describes different blood tests that you may have and what they mean.

www.icmcc.org and www.patientra.co.uk - The web-site of the “international council on medical care compunetics”. This is the international body that is taking a lead on Records Access and describing what is happening throughout the world. If you click on “Record Access”, it will direct you to a number of resources. A large number of people throughout the world are now looking at this as a way of keeping up to date on what is happening. There is also the world’s first “Blog” where patients, clinicians, people in the system and system suppliers can all post ideas to inform others about what they think. We want as many different people to post ideas here and what their thoughts and experiences are. Please pass this on to friends and family members all over the world so that they can also see what is happening too.

NHS Connecting for Health www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk
NHS Connecting for Health is part of the wider NHS. It helps the NHS to deliver better and safer care to patients, via new IT systems that link GPs and community services to hospitals. If you want to know what IT is going on inside the NHS then this is the place for you. You can hear about exciting developments that are happening now and in the future including the Summary Care Record, HealthSpace, Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions and other inititaives designed to help you the patient get the best care possible 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Here is a link if you want to know what's in it for you!

There may be other sources as well that we have not included. This is by no means an exhaustive list but it may help you to understand your health conditions better. Of course if there is something you do not understand then it is important that you contact the practice to help you further.