Birthday Bloods

Dear Patient

‘Birthday Bloods’: a simple rule about medication and other reviews at the surgery.

At Ridgacre, we try to sort out your medical reviews in as few visits to the surgery as possible. We think this is better for you and helps us too.

To do this we have a simple rule: to bring all your annual review tests into one batch – which we call your ‘Birthday Bloods’. This means keeping a list of the tests you need and doing these on or near to the month of your birthday. We aim to start inviting you to come for your tests from the month before your birthday and aim to get them done by the end of your birthday month. If you are on repeat prescriptions we also aim to match your medication review date to your birthday month.

No system is perfect and there are often reasons to do tests and reviews at different times of year, but overall we find that the ‘Birthday Bloods’ system helps reduce your visits to the surgery.

We hope that it is helpful for you to know about this general rule. Feel free to ask us about it when you attend so we can make sure things work smoothly for you, especially if you have a number of things that need reviewing each year.

Finally, to be clear, we use the term ‘Birthday Bloods’ because it is easy to remember. However, the tests in question may include other tests as well, such as urine tests or a blood pressure check.

Yours sincerely,

Ridgacre Medical Centres