Bentham Medical Practice

20/01/2026

19/12/2025

We had such an amazing time at the BDDFC annual Christmas party yesterday. Thankyou to all that attended. A huge thanks to Caroline and the choir for the wonderful Christmas songs and to Jonathan, Sarah and Louise who are great at organising the community events. Mandy's food was delicious as always and we even had Lisa and (ahem) Santa involved. (All I am saying is we didn't see Santa and James in the same room!)

16/12/2025

We would like to inform our patients of a notification we have had regarding a new pilot run by NHS England. The Pilot starts in December 2025 and will end in February 2026 and aims to help maintain patient lists, allowing patients to confirm or change their home address online.
Through the pilot, roughly 10,000 patients per month with be contacted through the digital route (This is throughout the country) as follows.
1st - Contact made through the NHS app
2nd - If no response after 3 days, they will email the patient
3rd - After 8 days of no response via email, a text will be sent.
4th - If a patient does not respond after 28 days of getting the App message, a letter will be sent to the home address we have for the patient.
If patients receive an email, text or letter, but are unable to use the app to confirm their address digitally, they can call the ccc on
0300 311 22 33
Please only use this number if you have been asked to confirm your address and cannot do this digitally. When a patient fails to confirm their address the practice will be notified.
The NHS England have provided some information at the link below

We’re launching a new digital service that patients can use to confirm or change their home address directly with the NHS. This means they no longer need to ask their GP surgery to do this for them. We are testing the ‘Confirm your home address’ service with patients so they can amend the...

15/12/2025

15/12/2025

Over £60 raised for Save the Children on our Christmas Jumper day. This will be combined with our other PCN surgeries Lunesdale & Hornby GP Surgeries & Sedbergh Medical Practice

08/12/2025

If you haven't had the chance to bob in and see us about the NHS app, here is an available video from the NHS to help with set up

This is the British Sign Language (BSL) version of the NHS App - NHS Login without using Photo ID video.NHS App - Free to download from the App Store or Goog...

21/11/2025

Struggling with the NHS app? We have Abi, the wonderful Digital Lead for our Primary Care network. Feel free to come see her between the hours of 10am to 12pm on Monday the 24th with your smart phone and ID!

🤩And finally, we'd like to introduce ... drum roll ... Abi Staveley🤩

Abi is our newly appointed PCN Manager & Digital Lead. Many of you will know Abi locally, and from the 8 years she spent managing the Lunesdale GP Surgery.

In this role, Abi focuses on the smooth running of the PCN — covering staffing, HR, contracts, financials, targets, and the Covid vaccination programme. She supports and develops collaborative working across the three GP practices and helps to keep the Western Dales PCN and its patients firmly on the map as we navigate changes that may come with the NHS 10-year plan!

"We have huge potential as a shared resource, and I’m keen to make that support as valuable, joined up, and seamless as possible".

Alongside that, Abi helps us make better use of digital tools and smarter ways of working — ideally the kind that save time, improve patient care, and reduce the collective urge to throw computers out of windows!

When Abi is not talking about transformation, she can be found brushing up on her negotiation and patience skills - courtesy of two very opinionated terriers - and getting lost in the dales - usually both at the same time!

Abi is really looking forward to catching up with everyone, hearing your ideas, and getting stuck in. As well as getting to meet more of you face to face as we navigate the NHS App together - Abi will be running some drop-in sessions so do keep an eye out for dates and times.

❤️Please share our Western Dales PCN page so that more patients and community groups keep in touch with what we're doing and what's happening locally ❤️

Ever thought you'd see your doctor dressed in a Christmas Jumper or impersonating the Grinch?! ... watch this space 😉

21/11/2025

🥳Lovely to put another face to a name: Kim - our General Practice Assistant (GPA) in Bentham🥳

We have a General Practice Assistant in each of the 3 Practices, and although funding is provided by the PCN, they are employed directly by the Practice itself.

So what does a GPA do?
Their role includes performing administrative tasks like sorting clinical mail and preparing paperwork, and in some cases, basic clinical duties such as taking blood pressure, urine dips, and ECGs. The role aims to support GPs by handling routine tasks, allowing them to focus on patient care and reducing their administrative burden. Other duties include arranging patient appointments and referrals, extracting information for patient records, and providing basic health promotion advice.