Coachford Family Practice provides a broad range of services to care for you and your family’s health. Please see comprehensive details below:
Call us 0217434724
Antenatal Care
Childhood Immunisations
Women’s Health
Diabetes Management
Men's Health
Travel Medicine
Other Services
Antenatal Care
Antenatal care is free to all women through the maternity and child scheme. We are delighted to participate in this scheme and will care for you during your pregnancy in tandem with the maternity hospital. Your first visit will include blood tests and a thorough counselling of what to expect. We will advise you on further monitoring in the community from there.
Childhood Immunisations
We fully promote childhood vaccination. Immunisation is a simple, safe and effective way of protecting babies and children against certain diseases. The risks from having these diseases are far greater than the risk of any minor side effects from immunisation.
The immunisations are available free of charge from 2 months. All vaccines are administered by our practice nurse. Should you have any concerns about the health of your child on the day of the vaccine they will be reviewed by the doctor initially.
Please see schedule below.
| AGE | VACCINES |
| 2 months |
|
| 4 months |
|
| 6 months |
|
| 12 months |
|
| 13 months |
|
Women’s Health
CERVICAL SCREENING:
The practice is registered with Cervical Check, the national screening programme for cervical cancer. Women aged between 25 and 60 are advised to have a regular smear test. It is a simple procedure where a sample of cells is taken from the cervix to look for early changes. A smear test can identify cell changes before they become cancer cells. The best time to have a smear test performed is between days 10-20 of your cycle. You can check if you are due your smear test on www.cervicalcheck.ie. The service is free of charge. Please book with our nurse or doctor when your smear test is due.
FAMILY PLANNING / CONTRACEPTIVE SERVICES
We offer a full range of family planning services to meet the varied needs of our patients.
In terms of contraception we will counsel you on the various options and help you to choose the right fit for you. Options available include contraceptive pills and patches, mirena, jaydess and copper coils, implanons, 3 monthly injectable preparations and we also provide for emergency contraceptive needs.
In terms of your family planning we offer preconceptual counselling and health promotion.
We provide comprehensive advice and support on infertility and offer preliminary investigations and onward referral in this regard.
Diabetes Management
We take a special interest in diabetes management in the community. We run monthly diabetic clinics and offer all diabetic patients a six monthly review. Our comprehensive reviews cover diet and exercise, medication reviews and optimisation, blood pressure monitoring, foot care, and screening for complications of the disease. Nurse Mary Tips and Dr Kingston have both completed Diplomas in Diabetic Management and thoroughly believe in empowering the patient to manage this chronic disease. We also have a diabetic nurse specialist who attends every few months to offer advice and collaboration with hospital consultants.
Men's Health
We actively encourage men to attend for regular health checks and advise annual checks from 50 years of age. These checks encompass blood tests screening for diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure checks, ECG for evidence of heart disease and prostate screening.
Travel Medicine
We cater for the patient broadening their horizon through travel by offering advice on avoiding potential hazards and provision of vaccinations depending on destination. We are certified to provide yellow fever vaccine which can be mandatory for certain locations. We would advise you make an appointment at least 8 weeks before your trip to discuss your vaccination requirements.
Other Services
- 24 hour blood pressure monitoring: This is now the gold standard for diagnosis of high blood pressure and for monitoring of same. It eliminates the ‘white coat’ effect whereby patients find their blood pressure rises simply due to the surgery environment.
- ECG: This records the electrical activity of the heart and can be used to screen for various heart conditions in the practice and assessment of chest pain.
- STI screening: We offer a full screening service for all sexually transmitted diseases including Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, HIV, hepatitis, genital warts and herpes.
- Cryotherapy: This is useful for treatment of multiple skin conditions, especially warts and verrucas.
- Driving Licence Medicals
- House Calls: These are reserved for the very elderly or patients who are unable to make it to the practice due to mobility issues or the severity of illness. We would ask that all requests for house calls be made as early as possible in the morning to facilitate scheduling.
- Under 6 and Over 70’s Doctor Visit card: We participate in provision of free GP care for children under the age of 6 and adults over the age of 70.