Walk-In Flu Clinics

This year the Practice will be running Walk-In Clinics for eligible patients on the following dates and times:

• Thursday 1st October 2026 between 1-2pm

• Saturday 3rd October 2026 between 9-12pm

• Saturday 10th October 2026 between 1-2pm

No appointment is necessary for these clinics; you can just turn up at Simpson House. All eligible patients will receive a text message invite from the Practice. They are only able to vaccinate eligible patients.

Please remember to dress appropriately and be able to roll up your sleeve ready to have the jab.

Note: Housebound patients will be contacted separately.

More information and eligibility: Simpson House Flu Clinics⧉

Confirm Your Address

NHS England are currently working through their Personal Demographics Service (PDS) database⧉, which holds details of every NHS patient, to verify address information.

As part of this process, you may receive a message via the NHS App, email, SMS or letter requesting you to confirm your address. It is not a scam.

It is vitally important that you either confirm your address or correct it, if it has changed. Do not ignore the request.

Failure to do so within 60 days of the request could eventually mean you being removed from the database and GP list, resulting in you being unable to receive (further) NHS treatment.

Although linked to it, this check is completely separate from your GP practice and you must respond to it, even if your GP already has your current address.

You can read more about the process directly on the NHS Primary Care Support⧉ and NHS Digital⧉ websites and view answers to common questions on the NHS England⧉ website.

"Hello, I'm Emma"

In an effort to reduce the daily 08:30 phone battle, the Practice has recruited a new AI Receptionist called Emma. 'She' should be starting work from the beginning of October 2026.

'She' will be able to answer calls, ask the PATCHs questions and record your answers if you want to make an appointment and give guidance on blood test results.

Only if 'she' cannot help you with your query or request will you be put into the normal queue.

Like any 'newbie' there may well be a period of settling in whilst 'she' learns the ropes.

You can read more about the system directly on the QuantumLoopAI⧉ website.

Pharmacy First

Pharmacists can suggest treatments that do not need a prescription for a range of conditions.

Most pharmacies can also offer prescription medicine for some conditions, without you needing to see a GP or make an appointment. This is called Pharmacy First.

Conditions they can already offer prescription medicine for are:

• Impetigo (ages 1+)

• Infected insect bites (ages 1+)

• Earache (ages 1 - 17)

• Sore throat (ages 5+)

• Sinusitis (ages 12+)

• Urinary tract infections (UTIs) (women ages 16 - 64)

Five additional conditions are now due to be added during autumn 2026:

• Low frequency migraines in adults

• Hay fever or allergic rhinitis in children

• Ear infections in adults

• Mild to moderate acne in young people and adults

• Mild skin infections and scabies

Initially, a few hundred chemists will offer treatments for the five new conditions, NHS England says. There will be a gradual rollout and the new services will eventually be available at thousands of community NHS pharmacies across England.

If you are not within the above age ranges, a pharmacist can still offer advice and support decisions about self care treatment with over the counter medicines, but you may need to see a GP for treatment.

More information: NHS Pharmacy First⧉.

HPV Self-Testing Kits

Women who have missed a cervical screening appointment in England are to be offered HPV self-testing kits by the NHS.

Over the next year, nearly four million will receive invites on the NHS App or via text message, email or letter to order a free kit to use at home.

Figures show around a third of women who are eligible for cervical cancer screening have not taken up the offer recently.

The self-testing kits are designed to get more women checked for high-risk HPV virus, which causes nearly all cases of cervical cancer.

You can read more on the NHS England⧉ website.

Blood Tests

If you have a blood test at the Practice and the results come back as 'normal', you will now automatically be sent a text message confirming this.

You may also receive a message if the result is slightly out of range, but non-urgent.

Palantir and the NHS

In 2023, the Government signed a £330m contract with Palantir, a controversial US military contractor, one of whose founders, Peter Thiel, is openly anti-NHS. Despite this, its proprietary Foundry software is being used for what is known as the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP). The company paid Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm, Global Counsel, more than £30,000 a month over many months to put executives in front of British politicians to promote it, before the tender was even issued. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they won.

The FDP is intended to pull together and analyse health and other data from many different systems, but critics say that it is up to 10x slower than some of the systems it is meant to replace. It is also apparently prone to crash and is less capable than some Trusts' own in-house developed systems.

Only a relatively small number of NHS Trusts are actively using the FDP. As of July 2026, no local GP medical records are being stored on it, nor is any data in the Patients Know Best system. But the NHS London NW University Hospitals (LNWH) Trust (Northwick Park, St Mark's, Central Middlesex and Ealing), who were an active participant in the original trials, is processing patient data on the FDP.

The government has already been urged by two parliamentary committees to invoke a break clause within the contract and cancel it in February 2027.

If you want to know more - and you really should - a good start is this YouTube channel: The Fine Print⧉ and this London Review of Books article: This Looks Absolutely Rubbish⧉

HealthSense ICB

The HealthSense Primary Care Network (PCN) in Harrow fell under the NHS North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB).

In April 2026, the NHS North West London ICB and the NHS North Central London ICB merged to become a new, larger, strategic organization called NHS West and North London ICB.

While the overarching board managing the budget and strategic priorities has changed, day-to-day patient healthcare will continue to be managed locally at the Practice and PCN level.

You can find out more about the new combined ICB on the West and North London ICB⧉ website.

Missed Appointments Campaign

Nearly 1 in 4 people have missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or arrived too late, according to a recent survey.

The NHS has launched a new campaign urging people to turn on ‘push alerts’ from the NHS App so they get reminders about appointments and can rearrange any they can’t make, helping to free up millions of appointments for others.

The survey of patients across England found that 12 per cent said they had forgotten about an appointment in the past, and 11 per cent had arrived too late.

The latest appointment statistics also show that patients did not attend 16 million GP appointments in 2025, with no shows for 1 in 23 appointments (4.3%) – the equivalent of an entire day of missed appointments at every GP practice in England each month.

You can find out more on the NHS England⧉ website.

RSV Vaccine

Adults aged 80 and over in the UK are now eligible for the free NHS Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine. The rollout - which includes all adults 75 and over and care home residents - is designed to prevent severe lung infections and hospitalisations in vulnerable groups.

To book yours, contact the Practice. They may reach out to you, but you do not need to wait for an invitation.

The RSV vaccine is a single, lifetime dose and can be given year-round, often alongside your COVID-19 or flu vaccines.

Jess's Rule

Jess's Rule is an NHS safety initiative in England that requires GP teams to "reflect, review, and rethink" a patient's diagnosis if symptoms unexpectedly persist, escalate, or remain unexplained after three appointments.

For patients, this initiative empowers you to speak up about your care. If your symptoms are not improving or are getting worse, keep track of them and be explicit about your concerns when you consult your doctor.

Multi-Disciplinary Meetings: These are now being held by the Practice on a monthly basis to review and discuss difficult patient cases.

For more information, you can read about the initiative directly on the NHS England Guidance⧉ website.