Helping our patients to manage their health conditions and preventing their health worsening is a top priority for us at QMC.
There are many reasons or factors that may lead us to invite a patient to attend an annual health review, including:
- If you have one or more long-term (or chronic) conditions.
- If you are at particular risk of developing a health condition.
- If you are taking certain medications (we need to monitor the impact of these on your wider health and well-being).
How do I book an appointment?
We closely monitor patient data to identify patients that would benefit from an annual review and what this review needs to include.
We aim to invite patients to attend their annual appointment sometime during the month of their birthday. This makes it manageable for us, whilst serving as an easier way for you to remember when your annual review is due each year.
We will contact you, either by text message or by telephone, to invite you to book your annual review appointment.
We may contact you on more than one occasion if you notice that you have not made your appointment, as we believe annual reviews are hugely important in helping to keep our patients as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
How will the appointment work?
To make the process more convenient for patients, we aim to cover all aspects of your health in one single annual review appointment. Your appointment will be allocated the appropriate amount of time according to your individual health conditions and needs. This means your appointment could last for up to one hour.
The appointment will usually be with a Nurse or Healthcare Assistant. They will be suitably trained to carry out the necessary tests and assessments that you need.
Depending on your individual health conditions and health needs, your appointment may include one or more of the following tests/checks:
- Blood pressure check
- Blood test
- Height and weight
- Physical assessment (e.g., foot checks for diabetes reviews)
You will be asked questions about your condition(s) and how it has affected you over the previous year. This helps us to understand if your condition is stable or not.
You will also be asked about how you are managing your condition(s). This will include questions about your lifestyle (e.g., exercise, diet, alcohol consumption, smoking). We can then offer you advice and signpost you to other services that can help you to improve your lifestyle, which will in turn help you to manage your health.
Do I need to bring anything to the appointment?
Some appointments require you to provide a urine sample (e.g., diabetes reviews). We will let you know about this when we contact you to arrange your appointment.
Some appointments require you to bring your current medications with you (e.g., inhalers to assess inhaler technique). We will let you know about this when we contact you to arrange your appointment.
What happens after the appointment?
If you are taking medications, our in-house pharmacy team will carry out a review of these. This may involve them phoning you to discuss your medication in more detail, including:
- Checking that you are on the appropriate medication, including the appropriate dose.
- Checking you understand what medications you are taking and why
- Checking you are taking your medications correctly
- Checking if you are also taking any over-the-counter medications
- Checking you are not experiencing any adverse effects of taking your medication (or suggesting alternatives if you are)
Once your medication has been reviewed, the pharmacy team can authorise repeat medications for up to 12 months, reducing how often you will need to contact us to get them reauthorised.
What if I don’t want an annual review?
If you choose not to have your annual review when you are invited, please let us know. We will make a note of this on your medical record so that we don’t keep contacting you to invite you.
If you decide at a later date that you do wish to have your annual review, please just get in touch with us and we will be happy to offer you an appointment.
What if I think I need an annual review, but don’t get invited?
If you think you should have an annual health review but we do not contact you by the end of your birthday month, please get in touch with us and we can check to see if you are suitable or not.
We can also offer you alternative options if you are not suitable for annual review but still wish to have your health assessed (e.g., NHS Health Check, weight management and lifestyle check up, social prescribing assessment etc.).