A Long-term condition includes:

• Respiratory disease such as Asthma and COPD
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Diabetes
• Kidney disease
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Epilepsy
• Mental health
• Other long term health issues that affect the health or lifestyle of a patient.

These medical conditions require an annual review (sometimes more frequent) to ensure that the condition is being managed appropriately (by you the patient and also by us as your healthcare provider), identify any problems, address any concerns and ensure you are confident to manage your condition between reviews. Your medication is reviewed to ensure they remain safe for you to take and continue to support your health and wellbeing. This is also an opportunity to explore other NHS services that you may benefit from accessing such as physiotherapy, mental health therapy, diabetes prevention, weight management, falls prevention and much more.

How Does the Process Work?

Patients living with long term conditions will be invited for their annual review within their birthday month. Some patients have more than one long term condition. If this is the case, all relevant conditions will be reviewed within the one annual review process. This ensures that you are only attending the surgery when you need to and avoids unnecessary multiple visits.  You will receive a phone call or text message with a link questionnaire to complete or a letter which explains the next steps.

For some conditions, it may be necessary to have more than one appointment, for example, an initial appointment with the health care assistant (to ensure results are available for the review) and then a review with the Clinical Pharmacist, Diabetes nurse, Respiratory nurse or the GP. In some cases, this may be done over the phone. If all your results are reassuring and they are no concerns the GP may review and issue your medication without needing to speak to you. Where you normally received medication as a repeat dispensing prescription (batch) this will be issued again.

If there are any concerns with your results the surgery will communicate this to you or request, you to make an appointment with the relevant clinician.

Please note that we are unable to issue a new batch until the review process is complete so you may need to continue ordering medication for up to a month after your initial appointment. If your review becomes very overdue your medication quantities may be reduced to 14 days at a time.

We hope you find this new process straight forward and easy to use. If you have any questions about the annual review process, please do not hesitate to contact us.