Festive Logistics: Getting Prepared for Christmas and New Year

The festive season can be incredibly busy. In amongst balancing any combination of work, Christmas parties, school plays, term dates, visiting friends and family and getting all your shopping done, it can be difficult to tabs on which day is which.

This year, both Christmas and New Years’ Day fall on Sundays, meaning their respective bank holidays shift into the following week.

To help you prepare, we wanted to let you know what dates we would be open and closed, how else to get prepared and where to go for help if you need it this festive season.

Opening Times

As normal, we will keep our regular opening hours and be closed on weekends and bank holidays. Because of how the dates fall, there will be a 4-day period around Christmas, and a 3-day period around New Year when we will not be open.

Reorder your prescriptions early

If you have regularly prescribed medication that needs to be reordered, please do so as soon as possible. A minimum of 2-3 working days is needed from us receiving a request to it being ready to collect, but with bank holidays and how busy the practice is, we would encourage you to allow more time.

You can request a repeat prescription through the NHS app. The service is available 24/7, and you can choose a local pharmacy to collect your medication.

Take a look at our NHS App resource and screen-by-screen instructions for reordering your prescriptions.

Local Pharmacy opening times

As well as making sure your local Pharmacy is open for you to collect your medication, remember that Pharmacists can help with a wide range of common illnesses and ailments.

To find day-by-day opening times for pharmacies nearest to you, use the NHS Find a Pharmacy service.

By entering your postcode, you will see a list of the Pharmacies, starting with the nearest to you and when they are open that day.

Clicking on an individual Pharmacy will give you contact details, directions, and their standard and bank holiday opening times.

You can also choose to filter your search results to only show Pharmacies that are open right now.

Getting help while we are closed

Your first port of call for medical help when the practice is not open should be NHS 111.

By visiting 111.NHS.uk or calling 111 you can:

• Get help and advice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• Check your symptoms and get advice on conditions and medication.
• Find self-help resources and links.
• Find out what services are available near you.
• Be connected to a nurse, emergency dentist, pharmacist, or GP.
• Get a face-to-face appointment if you need one.
• You should only ever call 999 or go to Accident and Emergency if it is a life-threatening situation.

Other help

No appointment is needed; you can turn up and wait to be treated. It is open 8 am to 10 pm every day of the year, including Bank Holidays.

Local community Pharmacists are also available to offer you advice and treatment for a series of minor ailments such as migraines, teething, allergies, and fevers.

There is also the UTI service, where participating pharmacies can treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections without you needing to see a GP first. Find the nearest Pharmacy offering the UTI service here.

Over the next week, we will be sharing some general tips for staying healthy this winter, as well as some ideas and resources from our Primary Care Network team about how to look after yourselves and others over Christmas and New Year.

A happy and safe festive season

On behalf of all the staff at West Road and Louisa Surgery, we would like to thank you all for your support and patience through another challenging year in primary care and wish you all a happy and safe festive season.