The Dartmouth Medical Practice and Dart Patients’ Group have held their annual public meeting at Townstal Community Hall. The Patients’ Group elected Paul Green as the new chair who will replace Dave Cawley, who led the group during the surgery move to the new HWBC. Dave was thanked, along with Pierre Landell-Mills, for his valuable contributions to developing the Patient survey in collaboration with the DMP.

Dr Andrew Eynon-Lewis presented an overview of the DMP activities and picked up on some of the issues highlighted in the survey, notably minor injury provision and continuity of care. There followed a presentation on Health Care Navigation, which the practice is intending to gradually introduce over the next few months, which seeks to ensure that patients benefit from the expertise of the wider healthcare team. The current navigation of patients to the practice physiotherapist and also to the support offers of Dartmouth Caring being good example of this. Future options might include navigation to local pharmacists, practice pharmacist and mental health professionals. Information on these developments will be posted on social media. Finally, Surgeon Commander Jon Minty, Principal Medical Officer at BRNC and Dr Andrew Eynon-Lewis jointly launched the practice as being an accredited Veteran-Friendly practice. This means that the practice has an understanding of the specific health issues veterans may experience and is able to deliver the best possible care and treatment for patients who have served in the miliary.