Appointments
Appointments System
Appointments can usually be pre-booked up to four weeks in advance, for more choice of your preferred practitioner or time. These spaces are limited in order to leave sufficient appointments to meet the daily demand of patients wanting to access a doctor or health professional urgently on the day.
When the pre-bookable spaces are too far ahead or patients want an earlier appointment than offered, patients are asked to ring at 08:00 on the day on which they wish to be seen.
Appointments are issued on a first come first serve basis as soon as the appointments line opens at 08:00.
Home Visits
Home visits are for patients who are housebound because of illness or disability.
Requests must be made between 8.00am– 10.00am except in emergencies.
A doctor or Nurse Practitioner may phone you back as it may be a problem that can be assisted by a telephone consultation or it may be more appropriate for the Nurse Practitioner / District Nurse to attend or even arrange a hospital admission.
Please come to the surgery if at all possible rather than call Doctor out, remember several patients can be seen in the time it takes for one home visit. This Practice offers telephone consultations for patient’s unable to make it to the surgery.
Telephone Consultations
This practice offers bookable-on-the-day and pre-bookable telephone consultations with the doctors and nurse practitioner. These can be arranged for medical advice, medication advice where an examination is not required or for follow up appointments.
Cancel an Appointment
It is important that you inform the reception staff if you are unable to attend your appointment, this will allow that appointment to be offered to another patient. If you fail to notify the Practice that you are unable to attend, you will be sent a letter informing you that you have defaulted from your appointment. Persistent defaulters maybe removed from the list.
You can also reply to your text reminder to cancel your appointment.
SMS service
We have a text reminder service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your health, your invites and your appointments.
Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.
To keep our telephone lines free for patients phoning us, we will text you about basic information such as:
- your prescription is ready at your nominated pharmacy
- a link to your sicknote
- please treat your condition over the counter
- please make an appointment
- your blood test / vaccination /injection is due
- Screening invitations
- your annual review is due
- Invitations to vaccine clinics
- a link to advice
- a link to a patient leaflet
- normal or satisfactory diagnoistic results - no action required
- normal or satisfactory blood results - no action required
we will never contact you by text for marketing purposes, please contact the surgery if you wish to opt out of this service
Teaching Practice
We are accredited to help train the doctors of the future and ask your co-operation in this process. We are a teaching practice for university medical schools, and occasionally students may sit in on consultations, this will also help the staff here to improve and maintain medical and consultation skills. You will always be asked by the receptionist if this is acceptable to you. If you feel at all uncomfortable during your consultation, please inform the clinician who can ask the student to leave. All consultations are strictly confidential.
Sometimes we will ask if the student can interview you separately, and on occasion and with your agreement we may ask if your consultation can be recorded. This would be for teaching purposes only and we certainly won’t be offended if you say no. You are entitled to refuse at any time. Confidentiality will be maintained at all times.