Dear Patient,

We have been informed by our local NHS commissioners that
funding for patient text messages will be reduced effective immediately. This
is due to financial constraints that the NHS is facing nationally and these are
measures to reduce spending.

This will mean that
our ability to send text messages for appointment reminders, informing patients
about result of investigations and requests to book appointments by us will be
significantly limited. Therefore, we will only be using the text message
service for limited purposes.

There are other ways that we can communicate with you. If
you have the NHS app, we can send notifications and messages via this service.
So, if you do not have the NHS app already, we will strongly recommend
downloading it as it can help us to continue communicating with you.

We can also contact you via email-as these are free of
charge. So if you have a valid email address, please inform the practice and we
can update this on your records, so that we can continue to keep in touch. You
can get in touch via our website and submit an online query. 

Please note, as these changes are being made immediately by
the local NHS commissioners our changes will take place straight away. We will
not be sending text messages for any further appointments or reminders to book
appointments after blood tests etc. If you have had investigations done and you
do not have the NHS app or an up to date email, it will be your responsibility
to contact the practice to get further information about your results.

For patient who do not have access to email or internet, we
will continue to contact you on your landline as per our practice policy.

With kindest regards

Dr Pratheep Suntharamoorthy
Abbamoor Surgery