NHS

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust

Excellent Compassionate Respectful

Temporary Closure of X-Ray Services at St Andrews Health Centre

We are writing to inform you that X-ray services at St Andrews Health Centre in Billericay will be temporarily closed for ten weeks,

starting from Monday 14th April 2025.

During this period, there will be no staff on-site, and as a result, patients will not be able to book or attend any X-ray appointments at St Andrews Health Centre. We kindly ask that you inform your patients about this closure.

While the X-ray service will be unavailable at St Andrews, all other services will continue as usual. Routine patients can still book

appointments via the SwiftQueue platform, and our bookings team will contact urgent and paediatric patients directly to book.

For patients requiring a walk-in Chest X-ray, we are still offering services at the following locations during the closure:

•        Brentwood Community Hospital 09:00-16:00 Monday - Friday (Excluding Bank Holidays)

•        Basildon Hospital 09:00-16:00 Monday - Friday (Excluding Bank Holidays)

•        Orsett Hospital 09:00-16:00 Monday - Friday (Excluding Bank Holidays)

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and support. Should you have

any further questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The telephone number for booking an appointment is:

0300 443 0121 Option 3 followed by Option 1

If you or a family member have ADHD medication prescribed by our GP practice. We would like to let you know that there will be changes to how your medication is prescribed in the future.

What is changing? 

From 1st April the specialist team that diagnosed your ADHD will be taking responsibility for prescribing medication and monitoring.

Is there anything I need to do?

No, we will share information with the specialist team before this transition, to ensure a smooth handover.

If you have any questions regarding this, please contact your specialist team.

Why is the process changing?

There are a lot more patients who take medication that need monitoring and there is an aging population. GP practices are struggling to meet these increasing needs with the staffing capacity they have available. In addition, the national shortage of medications and the complexity of ADHD care pathways, has made safe ongoing prescribing of ADHD medication challenging.

As a result, our practice and others in Mid and South Essex feel that we can no longer safely continue to prescribe ADHD medications and provide the necessary monitoring, a service that has never been part of core contractual GP work. For this reason, from 1^st April 2025, this practice will no longer issue prescriptions for ADHD medications.

For further information about ADHD medication prescribing, please visit:

www.midandsouthessex.ics.nhs.uk/adhd-medication

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