A vaccine to prevent shingles, a common, painful skin disease is available on the NHS to people in their 70s. The shingles vaccine is given as a single injection into the upper arm. Unlike the flu jab, you’ll only need to have the vaccination once and you can have it at any time of the year.

The shingles vaccine is expected to reduce your risk of getting shingles. If you do go on to have the disease, your symptoms may be milder and the illness shorter.

For more information about shingles, click here for the NHS shingles overview page or click here to go to the Shingles Aware website.

You can access your COVID-19 vaccination status through the free NHS App from 17th May. A full course is currently two doses of any approved vaccine.

You can access the app through mobile devices such as a smartphone, iPad or by tablet. Proof of your COVID-19 vaccination status will be shown within the NHS App. It may take more than a week for your identity to be checked and verified so you can use this service.

If you do not have access to a smartphone, you have had two vaccines and you know that the country you are travelling to requires COVID-19 vaccination status, you can call the NHS helpline on 119 (from 17th May) and ask for a letter to be posted to you. This must be at least 5 days after you’ve completed your course of the vaccine. We expect the letter to take up to 7 working days to reach you. Make sure there is time to get proof of your vaccination status before you leave.

Please do not contact your GP surgery about your COVID-19 vaccination status. GPs cannot provide letters showing your COVID-19 vaccination status.

We are still open and here for you. We are continuing to provide services as we have been doing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. However, because of the pandemic, the way patients are seen in primary care has changed.

When you phone into the surgery for an appointment, your details will be taken by one of our receptionists. Then one of our GPs or our Advanced Nurse Practitioner will give you a call back in the first instance. If a face-to-face appointment is needed then you will still be seen in person by a GP.  We understand that telephone appointments are not suitable for everyone – if you need a physical examination or a blood test, for example. You and your GP can reach a decision on what is best for you.

We ask many of the patients we have telephoned, to then come into the surgery for a face-to-face appointment, but due to infection control measures and social distancing, we can only let patients into the surgery if they have a planned appointment.

We are keen, as we are sure you are too, to avoid transmission of infection and so to ensure social distancing we are closely monitoring how many patients are in our building including sitting in the waiting room.

Alternatively, you can visit one of our local pharmacies for clinical advice or minor health concerns. For urgent issues or out of hours, you can also call the NHS on 111 or go online to seek NHS advice.