Your Heathgate GP's - Doctors Gilson, Meyerhoff, Palframan, Thirkell and Sampson 

Dr Gilson to leave the Practice

As many of you may have become aware, we are saddened to announce that Dr Gilson, one of our long standing GPs, will be finishing work at the Practice at the end of January 2012.

She is stopping work a little sooner that she had planned, in order to be able to offer more support to her elderly parents who live some distance from Norfolk.

'I have enjoyed immensely my many years working in South Norfolk and have felt priviledged to share some of life's ups and downs with many of you' she said on announcing her leaving.

Dr Tony Ames will be joining the Practice full time from the beginning of February.  Many of you will already have met Dr Ames when he worked with us for 12 months from August 2010.

We expect Dr Gilson's clinics to become very busy over the next few weeks ahead of her leaving and so for continuity of care, patients that have new conditions are asked to consider arranging appointments with one of our other GPs.

We will all miss Dr Gilson and wish her the very best for the future.  

Demand for appointments after Christmas

Thank you for your patience with us between Christmas and New Year.  With a four day public holiday again this year, we chose to offer very few routine GP appointments on 28th, 29th and 30th December to ensure we could accomodate the anticipated demand for 'urgent/same day need' after the Christmas break.

Our plan seems to have worked as, we were able to see the 72 patients that telephoned asking to be seen on Wednesday 28th December.  This was in addition to the 12 home visits that were requested.

We acknowledge that with the provision made for these same day appointments, it did limit the ability to book routine appointments but if we had not of done this, we simply would not have coped with the demand.

Carers Forum at Poringland

This local group holds regular meetings at our Poringland surgery. The Norwich and District Carers Forum provides free, confidential advice, information and ongoing support to carers by telephone or face-to-face meetings.

With their main office based in the Charing Cross Centre at St John Maddermarket in Norwich, the Forum is a valuable signposting organisation for those who care for family, friends and associates more>>

NHS Dentists for Heathgate patients

We are regularly asked to see patients who have dental problems as they are not registered with an NHS dentist. NHS Norfolk has recently run an awareness campaign advising that there are more local NHS dentists than you may think! There are several ways to find a dentist

• Call NHS Norfolk on 0800 587 4132
• Search the Norfolk NHS dental map
• Call NHS direct on 0845 46 47 (24 hours)

Travel Health Questionnaire