** IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR OUR PATIENTS FROM THE MURRAY SURGERY**
The winter is always a difficult time for health services and particularly primary care. This year an earlier than normal rise in winter respiratory illness has led to significant and sustained pressure on our appointment availability. This has been coupled with a rise in sickness absence in our clinical and non clinical staff. We do understand this means that accessing medical care from the surgery is more complex than usual. Waits for routine care are longer. We offer our apologies for this but rest assured we are doing as much as we can to continue to be able to provide safe care to you all and we have sought extra staffing as well as asking staff to consider overtime.
We would like to offer some simple suggestions to our patients that may help keep you well over the winter period. Following this advice may mean you can care for yourself. This will allow us to make sure we can give care to the patients who need us the most.
There is lots of information on keeping you (or your child) well on the NHS inform website.
• https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/common-cold/
• https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/infections-and-poisoning/flu/
An additional resource that can be useful for parents of small children that is recommended by our GPs is “when should I worry.” This is available here and may help guide you as to whether you require medical care for your child:
What can our patients do to help?
Each one of us has a role to play in keeping our GP practice safe, sustainable and open. There is lots that we can do as individuals to help:
1. Consider reading the information above to see if it is possible to self-care for the illnesses mentioned. Many community pharmacies will also prescribe medications (including antibiotics) for a range of different illnesses so we ask that you consider attending your local community pharmacy for advice first if you are unsure. We have close working relationships with all our local community pharmacies and they will always redirect you to the practice if it is felt this is the best place for you receive care.
2. Respecting the pressure our staff are under. While we understand this time of year is difficult for our patients berating our staff causes them distress when they are already working in a pressured and difficult environment. Please treat them with courtesy and respect at all times. We acknowledge that the current pressures facing our health-care system are frustrating for our patients. However, none of them are the fault of any of the staff at the surgery and we ask that you remember this when interacting with us.
3. Be aware that the wait times for care are longer than normal. Routine care requests (via our engage app) may particularly be affected. We ask that you be realistic as to what the service can deliver at this time.
4. Please be kind and accommodating to our staff if they phone to rearrange an appointment. Staff absence for seasonal illness is unplanned and we may need to contact you to rearrange appointments. We understand this is frustrating but ask that you help us to help you.
5. Flu infections are a significant cause of illness at this time of year. One of the most important things you can consider to protect you, those you care for and your children is to consider flu vaccination.
We want to reassure you that in 2026 a significant review of our access to care will commence. This will include review of our staffing levels, online system and premises capacity. We will endeavor to keep our patients updated as the work progresses.
With kind regards and best wishes for the festive period From the GPs are Murray Surgery Partnership
The Murray Surgery Methods of Requesting Care
SUBMIT A ROUTINE DOCTOR REQUEST OR ADMIN ENQUIRY
Urgent same-day care is available by phoning the surgery on 01355 225374.
For routine care, please submit a form by following this link (medical request or admin enquiry) to access our portal. There are also many self-referral services available via this link, such as PHIO for musculoskeletal issues, access to maternity services, ability to download guidance etc.
SUBMIT A ROUTINE DOCTOR REQUEST OR ADMIN ENQUIRY
You will need to create an account which only takes a few moments – you will need your name, your date of birth and your address.
You can also download this app to your smart phone either android or apple:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=engage+consult+app&c=apps
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/engage-consult/id6450985909
Anyone in digital poverty can still phone the surgery when an admin staff member will complete an Engage form on their behalf while reception is open ie. 08.30-12.00 and 14.00 – 16.00 when the forms close for the afternoon.
From time to time you may receive a screen message advising that we have reached the maximum safe level of enquiries for the day and this might be before closure at 4pm. In this instance we ask that you attempt to submit an enquiry the following day.
We are committed to exploring new ways of working that accurately reflect demand. We hope this initiative will streamline our in-house activities and reduce the time taken to handle your queries. In this way, we hope to increase capacity to match demand. We recognise the growing normalcy of online activity for nearly all walks of life and hope to provide our patients with a suitable digital offering.
You can also upload photos on the form which will get round certain email addresses with attachments being rejected by the NHS firewall. Photos should not be of a sensitive nature.
For those without internet access the admin team will complete a form on your behalf which will be dealt with in the same order as all the enquiries are received.
WELCOME PAGE Message Temporarily Moved Down Screen
At Murray Surgery we are committed to provide the highest standard of patient-centered health care. We operate from a purpose built premises on Murray Road, East Kilbride and are easily accessible by public transport. We take pride in being a Training Practice serving nearly 14,000 people.
Our aim is to provide a high quality, caring and personal health care service to our whole patient population by:
- Putting our patients at the centre of what we do
- Having a highly qualified and trained multi-professional integrated primary healthcare team
- Offering our services in a safe, supportive and suitably equipped environment including using technological advances in health care systems for our patient’s benefit.
We work very closely with our allied community nursing, health visiting and specialist teams to ensure your care is co-ordinated to the highest of standards. We welcome any comments or suggestions you may have.
