Health Awareness Community Event
On 7th February 2025, Horn Lane Surgery held its second general event, open to patients and non-patients alike, inviting them into the practice to meet and liaise with clinicians and administrative staff.
Following the success of the previous event which was held in early 2024, the Patient Participation Group advocated for the practice holding another event to build on the momentum of the first event. The event’s goals were to offer to patients the opportunity to speak with clinicians and staff and to raise patient awareness of the importance of caring for their health, especially in the highlighted areas of bowel cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer as well as childhood immunisations and vaccinations.
We also wanted to highlight how to life a Healthy lifestyle and offer diet advice as these preventative measures to protect and preserve their healthcare and minimise the risk of developing health issues in the future.
These are areas which Horn Lane has focused on as these are areas where our patient population would most benefit therefore we were keen to engage with our patients and raise awareness of the need to partake in the screening processes for the cancers and have all immunisations and vaccinations up-to-date.
Patients were sent text messages to raise awareness of the event; in addition to this, practice staff took advantage of opportunistic occasions when speaking to patients in the days prior.
On the day of the event, Horn Lane Surgery put its 2-metre banner out in front of the building in order to attract passers-by who may not be registered by the practice.
Amongst the staff welcoming patients to the practice were the lead GP, Dr Akbar Khan; locum GPs: Dr Abdulsalam Algobari and Dr Khatuna Chantladze; practice nurse, Kia Stenberg; HealthCare Assistant, Ahmed Haji; various medical students from Imperial College Healthcare as well as administrative staff.
The patient turnout was extremely high throughout the duration of the event and the feedback received from those who attended was positive. Overall, they feel that the event was well-organised and beneficial for the patients and non-patients alike.
We had prepared several documents with medical information available which we were able to share and distribute amongst the attendees on the day. These were also available in the foreign languages most prevalently spoken at Horn Lane Doctors surgery.
We managed to register additional patients during the event whom we are glad to welcome to our patient population.
The event was a qualitative and quantitative success and Horn Lane Surgery looks forward to holding further events in the future. The next event is still in the preliminary stage but the practice will strive to further build on the events which we have held thus far.