I’m sure that we all get this feeling, but September seems to be rushing by and my in/pending box is overflowing.

Now that the children are back at school, my day starts early. They wake up to find they’re fully dressed! They believe that the school uniform wizard has been during the night and exchanged pyjamas for clothes. I find after this rather frantic start to the day that my 30 minute trip into surgery provides an opportunity to relax and reflect before the day begins.

The recent monthly practice meeting lasted 4 hours. We dissected the appointments system and reception for the 42nd time. Our Advanced Access hybrid, appears to be working, but a freak Friday two weeks ago left a queue of patients halfway down the street. This was a major cause for concern, for as well as interfering with the lollipop ladies work, it wasn’t a good advert for the Practice.

Meetings have been coming out of the woodwork. The local psychiatry department descended upon us last week, to appraise this years successes. A rapid access CPN clinic seems increasingly popular. The local orthopaedics team are hot on the heels of the psychiatric team, cynically, its amazing how popular Practice Based Commissioning is becoming.

Each Autumn, l wheel out my anaphylaxis update for our nurses, the District Nurses and as a show of good faith, the local nursing home nurses. The sandwiches usually go down well, but we avoid nuts, to prevent the adrenaline getting an early run out. The flu campaign is a rival to the Olympics in planning and infrastructure. We usually promote it in local press, and by some clever tweaking of EMIS, a reminder is attached to prescriptions.  The flu purge starts on a Monday, with A-E called and continues through to Friday working our way through the alphabet. There’s a strong feeling of team spirit as we all muck in, even roping the medical students in, who are only to keen to inject people, their bags or themselves.
 
The Registrars are videoing consultations, in a furious, last gasp bid to get their videos in for the old MRCGP examination. The consent process is of paramount importance, and we seem to have a well oiled machine, that not even the over zealous Registrar can jeopordise. Somehow, l’ve got to fit an hour or two’s worth of Registrar video vetting in. The more experienced trainer at the practice suggests to me that early mornings are ideal. Sadly this is the time when the school uniform wizard calls, and he cannot be deferred.

Take part in our short online survey and you could win one of four £25 M&S vouchers