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HENRY launches in Orkney
NHS Orkney are now working together with Home-Start Orkney to deliver “HENRY Healthy Families: Right from the Start” programmes right here in Orkney. The programme is an 8-week programme for parents and carers providing a range of support and skills to help build upon and achieve a healthy and fun lifestyle for the whole family. The programme is completely free and available to any parents or carers who have a child, or children aged between 0 – 5 years old. HENRY is a charitable organisation who are passionate about babies and children getting the best possible start in life. This…
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The Balfour Switchboard Brief Downtime
The Balfour Switchboard Brief Downtime – Monday 5th August Please be aware there is a planned communication outage to The Balfour Switchboard number (01856 888000) to allow for essential maintenance of our telephone system on Monday 5th August from 2am – 2.15am. During this time if your call is urgent and cannot wait until after 2.15am and you need to contact the Balfour Switchboard, please use the following number 07795453757. We apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.
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Cabinet Secretary visits NHS Orkney and thanks staff
Today we welcomed the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, Mr Neil Gray, MSP to Orkney, to share our exciting journey of improvement. Mr Gray was welcomed to The Balfour by our Chief Executive, Laura Skaife-Knight before embarking on a tour of The Balfour and hearing about the fantastic work being done and the progress across NHS Orkney. Laura Skaife-Knight said: “We were delighted to welcome the Cabinet Secretary to NHS Orkney to hear about the exciting journey of improvement we are on, and the steps we are taking to further improve patient care and services, and the…
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Monday 12 August 2024 – Public Holiday Arrangements
Monday 12 August is a Public Holiday for NHS Orkney. All GP surgeries will be closed on the Public Holiday, but in an emergency you can contact a GP in the same way as routine evening/weekend cover. If you are ill when your practice is closed and can’t wait until it reopens, you should call NHS 24 on 111. Community Pharmacy Arrangements on the Public Holiday on Monday 12 August:
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Chief Executive Fortnightly Blog to NHS Orkney Staff – 22 July 2024
Message for All NHS Orkney Staff Hi All I’m pleased that after a few weeks where it has felt pretty grey outside, that over the last week we have seen glimpses of sunshine returning. Let’s hope we see more of this better weather in the months to come, recognising the impact of the weather on our mental wellbeing. It’s certainly been a topic of conversation when I’ve been out and about over the last few weeks. In this week’s blog I focus on: Starting with our Quarter 1 (April – June) performance against our Corporate Strategy, our scorecard shows we…
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Covid and Respiratory illness reminder – 22 July 2024
Covid remains in circulation in our community and NHS Orkney Health Protection team are asking the community to continue to be mindful of actions that can be taken to reduce the spread of infection. • Regularly clean your hands and surfaces • Avoid overcrowding in shared spaces or ensure good ventilation in shared spaces • If you’re feeling unwell with respiratory symptoms, please avoid unnecessary contact with others, particularly those who may be considered vulnerable • Cover your mouth and nose when sneezing and coughing • Dispose of any tissues used when blowing your nose as soon as possible For…
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Global IT Outage – 19 July 2024
Debs Crohn Head of Improvement and Digital Services at NHS Orkney said “We are aware of the current global IT outage affecting Microsoft Cloud Services. Our IT team continues to monitor all our systems and we have in place local mitigations should anything affect NHS Orkney directly. However, at present, we can confirm none of these outages are affecting our patients or their appointments scheduled for today. If this changes, we will of course be in touch with patients.”
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How we’re doing: our Quarter 1 (April-June) Corporate Strategy progress update
When we launched our new Corporate Strategy earlier this year, we committed to keeping our patients, community, partners and staff updated on how we’re performing against our five strategic priorities (and the specific deliverables within each) we agreed for this year. As a reminder: excellent care. This is our first quarterly update which we discussed at our public Board meeting earlier today. How we did in Quarter 1 There are 77 deliverables in our Corporate Strategy Delivery Plan 2024/25 in Quarter 1. At the end of June, 3 actions were rated red (significantly delayed), 6 actions (partially delayed) and 68…
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Older adults in Orkney encouraged to look out for appointment letters landing as new vaccination offered to protect against RSV
With Scotland’s Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination programme set to begin later this summer, NHS Orkney and Public Health Scotland (PHS) are encouraging older adults to look out for their invitation letters arriving. There were over 1,000 cases of RSV recorded in adults aged 75 and over in Scotland, with more than half (535) having to spend time in hospital as a result. RSV is also the leading cause of emergency respiratory admissions to hospital in Scotland in infants, with 1,516 children aged under one hospitalised with the virus last year. RSV is a common and highly infectious respiratory virus that…
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An update on the Daisy Villa GP Surgery
Updated statement issued 18 July 2024 As a further update, please see an additional statement from John Daniels below. “Sometimes there is a time and place for somewhat vague language and unfortunately that’s right now, where I need to be really careful with what I’m saying to ensure I’m not compromising the confidentiality of an ongoing procurement process. As you all know, it’s really important that the procurement process is successful so we can have the future of Daisy Villa in safe and capable hands and while I know that’s not a particularly helpful update, it’s all I can really…
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Chief Executive Fortnightly Blog to NHS Orkney Staff – 8 July 2024
Message for All NHS Orkney Staff Dear Team Orkney In this week’s blog I focus on: We’re mid-way through Wimbledon fortnight. Thanks to securing tickets via the public ballot, last Monday I had the opportunity to go to Wimbledon and spend the day on Centre Court. I was struck by two things throughout the course of the day, which I draw parallels to in terms of what we are trying to achieve at NHS Orkney, and I wanted to share my reflections with you. First, I watched two Brits in action (one won; one didn’t). But what was clear, was…
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NHS Orkney staff celebrate 431 years of service (between them) to the NHS at our first Long Service Awards Afternoon Tea
Yesterday we recognised and celebrated 10 staff who, in 2024, mark 40-50 years’ service to NHS Orkney and the NHS at a special afternoon tea. The relaunch of events to recognise and celebrate Team Orkney for their achievements and commitment to NHS Orkney and the NHS is something we have introduced in direct response to staff feedback over the last year. Staff who were recognised at our special event for the longest serving staff at NHS Orkney were: The event was led by our Chief Executive, Laura Skaife-Knight and Board Chair, Meghan McEwen, and it was a special moment of…