Newsletter: June 2025

Staffing Changes

May and June have seen a number of new colleagues join us at Bourn. We are delighted to welcome our new Practice Manager Samantha Sales, who started with us at the beginning of June. Sam joins us as an experienced Practice Manager who has worked locally in Cambridge, and is looking forward to working at Bourn and experiencing rural general practice. We also wish to again thank our retired PM Tracey Wilson for her support over the last few months.

We are very pleased to welcome Cornel Buss as new Lead Nurse at Bourn. Cornel is an experienced Practice Nurse, and is looking forward to working alongside our nurse and HCA team. We are also pleased to be joined by Rebecca Dunning in Dispensary, who will become a familiar face to those collecting medications.

We are proud to report that Dr Ghorashi will shortly be qualifying as a GP, having successfully completed her training here at Bourn and passed all of her exams! Dr Ghorashi has been a valued member of the team at Bourn, and we are sure you will join us in wishing her all the best for the future.

Carers’ Week 9th-15th June

Carers’ Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness around the challenges of being an informal carer. An informal carer is someone (adult or child) who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend. During Carers’ Week we want to reach out to those registered at Bourn Surgery who are informal carers, to make sure you are aware of the support available, both through the Surgery and through local and national charities and organisations. You can find out more about the support Bourn Surgery provides to informal carers on our website here.

We offer an annual Carer’s Health Check, and our Meridian PCN team of social prescribers, care co-ordinators and health coaches can also provide help and support with challenges relating to caring for someone else.

On our website you will also find links to other organisations that provide support and advice for those providing informal care. Caring Together is a major support organisation that can provide practical advice, such as setting up ‘What If’ plans that put emergency plans in place for the person you care for. in the event that you are unexpectedly unable to do so, whether through illness or accident.

You can find out more about the Carers’ Week campaign here.

In order to be able to ensure we are offering you the correct support, we need to know if you are providing informal care. Please let us know if you are providing unpaid care on a regular basis to a family member or friend, so that we can ensure your medical record reflects this. This is also important because unpaid carers are currently eligible for the NHS ‘flu annual vaccine, and by having your carer status recorded you will be automatically invited for the vaccine in the autumn.

Equally, if you are registered with us as an informal carer and no longer care for someone, please let us know so that we can ensure our records are up-to-date and accurate. You can let us know if you are an informal carer, or if you no longer provide care, by using the ‘Contact Us Online’ button on our website, or by contacting Reception. 

Contacting us online

Many of you know that you can now contact us online via our website using the ‘Contact Us Online’ button. This takes you to a service called accuRx, which allows you to submit a message to us electronically. Please do note that this service is for non-urgent administrative and medical requests only, and is not appropriate for use for any urgent requests or problems that need a rapid response or appointment. Any issues where you think you may need to speak to a practice team member urgently (within 3-4 days) should be discussed with Reception in the first instance.

Patient Participation Group

As highlighted in our last newsletter, our PPG group met last month with our new Chair Rosie O’Brien and Secretary Julie Pashley. They met with the rest of the PPG Committee and discussed ways of expanding our PPG group. The PPG should as much as possible reflect the practice population that Bourn Surgery serves, and as such we are keen to ensure that we have good representation from all of the villages that we cover, as well as a demographic and ethnic diversity that reflects our practice population. Being involved with the PPG does not need to be time-consuming, but does provide you with a voice in representing the views of Bourn Surgery patients.

If you would like to know more, or if you would like to join, please do visit our webpage to sign up here.

Signing up does not commit you to anything, but will provide opportunities for involvement if you are interested. We look forward to hearing from you!

Published: Jun 12, 2025