As you are all aware I have been following closely the advice provided by my professional body. The College of Podiatry (COP) are instructed and informed by government and other union affiliated advice.

The advice until now, has been to start categorising caseloads into red, amber and green categories depending on risk and need. Throughout the whole lock down I have been able to see emergencies (infection, suspected infection or tissue breakdown). As of the change to lockdown in England I was able to start seeing red and amber patients. These are those patients who are at risk because of underlying health conditions or who had pain or infection or who were key workers with foot pain.

This was released as a 4 Nations approach however I felt I had to be mindful that what was happening in London was not really representative of what was happening up here.  To that end I have waited until the lockdown rules changed North of the Border before starting to run clinics. I didn’t feel comfortable asking patients to travel to clinic until lockdown was changed up here.

As of Friday nights’ email from the COP (it’s always a Friday night!!) I am able to start seeing everyone on my caseload following triage to see if there is a need and if they are free of symptoms.

Things are not back to normal. Yet.

I have started to plough through the list of those who were cancelled and who are red and amber patients first. Once I’m up to date with those chaps, then I can start getting in my green patients (makes it sound like I’m  treating E.T!). I’m only booking a week or two ahead. This is for a variety of reasons but most importantly I have to be reactive to any changes in lockdown that might happen. Cancelling weeks of clinics when you’ve only just booked them is a real pain in the bum. Additionally as you all know I’m a mum with 2 smallish humans who I have to home school and feed regularly. Mr W is on furlough for another week or so but I’m going to have to work around him a bit too once he’s back to work.

So… I will be in touch shortly. Ish.

If you are having problems, pain or are concerned you might be getting an infection, as always, lift the phone, leave a message or send me one on Facebook Messenger.

In the meantime here is how the clinic is looking and you will see that I have installed some changes for infection control purposes. These are backed up by the changes I discussed in my previous blog. I will also be posting details on the face book page.

Remember if you or any member of your household has a temperature, persistant cough or loss of smell or taste then please cancel your appointment and isolate according to government advice.