Newsletter Summer 2026
Staffing Update
With a few tears shed, we farewelled Dr Deirdre Ahern to retirement in November. Dr Ahern has been providing health services to the Marlborough community for several decades and will be sorely missed by both patients and our team. We wish Deirdre all the best for her retirement and many joyful cruises!
We are very happy to welcome Nurse Practitioner, Lisa Blaker, to our team. Lisa brings a wealth of knowledge, having been providing primary care services to the Marlborough community for several years with Te Piki Oranga. She can provide a full range of services, and our Admin Team can guide you when booking appointments with her.
We also welcome Dr LJ Jani back to Redwoodtown Medical after a 2-month sabbatical.
We are actively trying to recruit more clinicians. We will keep you updated as soon as we have any announcements. Please be assured we are continuing to work hard for all our enrolled patients.
Skin Lesion Services Available from 5th February
We are pleased to welcome Dr Kitty Van Bekkum to Redwoodtown Medical as a skin lesion specialist GP. Dr Van Bekkum will be available for skin lesion spot checks on a Thursday (cost will be $60.00 for up to 3 lesions in a 15 minute consultation). She will also be providing minor surgery services (costs will depend on size, number and location of lesions and will be quoted at the time of check) or onward referrals as required. We do have some funding available for Community Service Card holders for lesion biopsy and removal for lesions suspected of being cancerous.
Dr LJ Jani will also be available Wednesday mornings for skin lesion spot checks and minor surgery (costs as above).
Urgent & After-Hours Care
Each day we have ‘on the day’ appointments available for patients who are unwell or have had an accident. Please ring us and ask for an on the day appointment. Our Admin Team will ask for a few details to ensure that your call can be appropriately responded to by our triaging nurses. One of our Nursing Team will call you back, so please ensure that you provide us with the best contact number and keep your phone handy and not on silent. We do not operate on a first- come-first-served basis, we triage based on clinical need so letting us know what is going on for you or your loved one is very important.
There are a few options available for our nurses to help you:
- The issue is acute and needs to be seen by a GP or Nurse Practitioner today. An appointment will be made for you but may not be with your usual GP/NP. All life-threatening illnesses or injuries will be directed to the Emergency Department or 111.
- The issue is acute and needs to be seen by a nurse today. An appointment will be made for you with a nurse. We have 2 nurses who are Community Prescribers. They can prescribe some medications for acute infections as clinically required (UTIs, Ear Infections, Skin Infections or Eczema Exacerbation and Bacterial Infections).
- The issue is acute, but we have no further on the day appointments. In this case we may suggest that you call Practice Plus for a telehealth appointment or attend Urgent Care, or if appropriate, you may be booked for the following day.
- The issue can be dealt with over the phone by providing advice or an off-work certificate or arranging a prescription. There will be a charge for these services.
- The issue is not acute. You will be booked for a routine appointment with the most appropriate clinician.
If you need care after-hours, call the practice number from 5.00pm weekdays, weekends and public holidays and you’ll be automatically connected with a clinician who can talk to you about your symptoms and help book an appropriate appointment if needed (there may be a charge for the appointment). This information is also available on our website.
12-Month Prescriptions & Repeat Script Requests
From 1st February 2026, clinicians will have the option to provide prescriptions for up to 12 months, if it is clinically safe to do so. The decision to extend your prescription length will be determined with a number of factors in mind:
- A stable medical condition.
- You are not prescribed controlled medications.
- The number of medical conditions and medications that you are on.
- If you have had significant changes in your medication or your condition.
Pharmacies will continue to issue medications every 3 months regardless of the prescription duration.
As there are a number of factors to consider when deciding if this is a safe option for your medication, we request that patients wishing to discuss this book a face-to-face appointment with a clinician. This can be done at your next medication review.
Please note that patients on 12-month prescribing will be required to attend an annual in practice review with a clinician.
Thank you to all our patients who get their repeat prescription requests into us in a timely manner. It can take up to 3 working days for us to do a repeat prescription and send it to the pharmacy. The pharmacy also needs time to prepare the script for you. Again, this can take them several days. We are processing approximately 200 repeat prescriptions per week over and above prescriptions generated in consultations.
We understand that it is easy to forget your script request, however we are seeing an increase of urgent scripts on a Friday, putting both our staff and the pharmacists under pressure and increasing the risk of mistakes.
We would appreciate if you could request scripts in a timely fashion, giving us time to let you know if you are due for blood tests, blood pressure or for a medication review.
Adult ADHD Assessments
You may have read about the other change coming in February regarding General and Nurse Practitioners being able to assess and diagnose ADHD in adults. GPs & Nurse Practitioners need to undergo significant training to be able to diagnose adult ADHD. This assessment requires a comprehensive evaluation that looks at several different factors. It is a complex process and must be made by a clinician who is suitably qualified. Unfortunately, there has been no extra funding made available for patients to assist them in this process and as such it will be considered a private service that is not covered by the funding that General Practice receives for general health services.
At this time, none of the clinicians at Redwoodtown Medical Centre have undertaken the extra training to be able to assess and diagnose adult ADHD. There are private providers for this service, and we recommend you visit the ADHD NZ website for more information and a list of these providers:
At Redwoodtown Medical Centre we can and do prescribe ADHD medication for those patients who have had a diagnosis and treatment plan from a psychiatrist and from 1st February those GPs or NPs who are qualified to provide a diagnosis and treatment plan.
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