Nightingale News – Autumn 2024

Why have 98% of GPs voted for industrial action nationally and what action is the Nightingale taking?

Find out here

This practice is delighted to be signed up to the Green Impact for Health Toolkit. We are taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint. The climate emergency is also a health emergency. Health care in the UK contributes 4-5% of the UK's carbon emissions. We need to enhance the health of today’s population without compromising the health of future generations.

Learn more about this here. 

Safe
Surgeries

Across London, an organisation called Doctors of the World UK (DoTW UK) helps c2,000 people every year who have been unable to access NHS services. Most of these people are migrants in vulnerable circumstances. The Nightingale is proud to be a ‘Safe Surgery’. A Safe Surgery is any GP practice that commits to taking steps to tackle the barriers faced by many migrants in accessing healthcare.

Learn more here. 

If you are reading this, you will have seen that we have recently updated our Nightingale Practice website. We hope you agree it’s better than the old site and easier to find information. There is a translation button (top right) so you can read the site content in a variety of other languages. We have also improved accessibility.

Along with the winter ‘flu vaccine and Covid-19 vaccinations, there is a new vaccine this year called RSV. The RSV vaccine helps protect against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Find out more about RSV and the Nightingale ‘flu vaccination clinics here. 

Practice Manager Jill White recently handed over £134 raised by our patients and staff to a group from the Little Buds Nursery. This money was added to money raised by the Little Buds children themselves. St Mary’s Secret Garden is a community garden in Hackney. It offers a safe space to people with support needs.

Find out more here. 

Dr James Fordham returned to us on 1 August, after his recent travels. We are delighted to see him back!

Together Better provides a wide variety of free activities at, or near, the Nightingale Practice every week. Tom Fearon is our Together Better coordinator. You can contact Tom on 07305 617 421 or email him at thomas.fearon@vchackney.org to find out more or you can find more information here. 

Together Better has won a Community Achievement Award. These awards are given to organisations, teams or individuals across City & Hackney that deserve recognition. This is a ‘thank you’ to all the Together Better workers and coordinators. Well done to them! Meanwhile, Together Better says thanks to those who voted for them. 

Members of our Together Better group had a day out in Greenwich this summer. Then they took the Uber boat up the Thames to Westminster.

Day trips to places of interest, like the outing to Greenwich, are just some of the activities offered by Together Better. Why not find out more about what goes on?

There is more information here. 

Here are members of the Nightingale Together Better group on a trip to the seaside – to Margate. A good time was had by all!

Everyone who went to Margate with the Nightingale Together Better group this summer had a great time. Here’s Beverly, one of the Together Better volunteers. Beverly helps out every week at the Thursday coffee morning at the surgery. The coffee morning starts at 10am and everyone is welcome.

Seated Exercise is one of the free activities we try to offer through Together Better at the Nightingale. During the summer, the seated exercise group made good use of the local green spaces.

Every Tuesday at 2pm, if the weather is good (and even if it isn’t sometimes), members of the Together Better group meet to take a local walk. Here’s one of our group, Marik, striding out the day we walked to the River Lea and through the marshes.