Cllr Paul Davies, in collaboration with Longley Farm and Holmfirth Tech, has set up an emergency hardship fund to support Holme Valley South residents in immediate financial need. The one off payment will help go towards basic necessities and give you immediate support while you sort out your entitlement to benefits, or the Government’s Covid 19 response payments or access to other forms of help.

The fund is not designed to be a long-term solution to financial hardship, however we will also seek to signpost you towards further support where appropriate. The fund is administered by Holmfirth Tech and an independent panel will decide whether to make a grant, normally within three working days of receiving your application.

There is also an option for residents to make a donation to the fund if they wish to.

Applications and donations to the fund can be made via the link below:

https://holmfirthtech.wildapricot.org

• For help or a query call 01484686305
• or email fund@holmfirthtech.co.uk

As you are all aware the current COVID-19 poses one of the greatest challenges that society has faced in recent times, and we have all had to make changes to our daily lives to ensure that we work together to protect the most vulnerable members of society. At the Practice we have had to make a number of responsive changes following recent developments to ensure the maximum safety of our patients, and to protect our staff as much as possible to ensure that the NHS can keep working in an effective manner and can continue to provide the best level of care possible.

As such, during the current period of emergency measures many routine services will be subject to short notice change and many administrative tasks will be streamlined to ensure that we focus more of our time and resources on the delivery of care to those that need it the most.

As part of this streamlining of administration tasks, the Practice will be changing its complaints procedures, during this period of crisis. As of the above date, we will now be reviewing complaints on a weekly basis at our Practice Clinical Meeting, to ensure that any high priority complaints that fall within the following categories can be swiftly discussed and any resulting changes to our Practice can be immediately implemented:

• Immediate risks to patients or staff
• Actual harm to patient or “near miss” incident of high severity.
• Urgent safeguarding concerns
• Criminal actions

Should your complaint not fall into these categories, then it will be dealt with when we have capacity to do so, and unfortunately at this time, the timeframe for this is uncertain. We appreciate your understanding whilst our Practice is dealing with unprecedented demand.

For information on frequently asked question please visit:

Greater Huddersfield FAQs https://greaterhuddersfieldccg.nhs.uk/covid-19-frequently-asked-questions/

NHS England FAQs https://nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccination/coronavirus-vaccine/

Oaklands Health Centre is part of The Valleys primary care network. The network consists of Oaklands Health Centre, Slaithwaite Health Centre, Elmwood Family Doctors, Honley Surgery, Colne Valley Practice and Meltham Group Practice. The network will be using the Holme Valley Memorial Hospital in Holmfirth for some of their clinics. 

I am worried that the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine isn’t safe as I’ve heard some countries are stopping using it – should I still have it?

Some European countries have temporarily paused the use of the vaccine as a precautionary measure, following reports of blood clots in a small number of people who had recently had the vaccine.
However, there is no evidence that the blood clots have been caused by the vaccine and the UK regulator, the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority, has said that they are confident the vaccine is safe. This is supported by both the European Medicines
Agency (the European regulator for medicines and vaccines) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), who have said the vaccine should is safe and should continuebe given.
There were 30 reports of clots among almost five million people given the vaccine across Europe but this is actually less than the number that would be expected to happen naturally. Following the concerns regarding blood clots, AstraZeneca has conducted a review of all safety data, which has shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots. This covered more than 17 million people vaccinated in the UK
and European Union.
The UK is further ahead its vaccination programme than most other countries and so far over 20 million people in England have been vaccinated. It is very important that people still have their COVID-19 vaccine when asked to do so. This is the only protection available against the serious illness caused by Covid-19, which has sadly led to the death of millions of people around the world, and people will continue to be
at risk from the disease if they do not take up the offer of a vaccine.

Stay safe and ensure you have your vaccination.