Appointments

To make an appointment, please telephone or call in at the surgery. The receptionist will try to make an appointment with the doctor of your choice, if this is inconvenient, you are welcome to see any doctor in the practice.

Telephone requests for same day appointments may be dealt with by the Nurse Practitioner; your request will be noted and the Nurse Practitioner will call you back. To help the Nurse Practitioner assess the urgency of your request please try and give the receptionist as much information as possible. Please leave a convenient telephone number (preferably a land line) for the nurse to contact you.

Alternatively, if you feel your problem may not need an appointment or you would like telephone advice you can arrange to speak to the Nurse Practitioner or one of the doctors by contacting the surgery on the dedicated Telephone Advice Line 01253 864454. (We would like to advise you that for training monitoring and quality purposes all telephone conversations are recorded. Please note this will not compromise patient confidentiality)

Telephone Advice

If you feel your problem may not need an appointment or you would like telephone advice you can arrange to speak to the nurse practitioner or one of the doctors by contacting the surgery on the dedicated telephone advice line 01253 864454. (We would like to advise you that for training, monitoring and quality purposes all telephone conversations are recorded. Please note this will not compromise patient confidentiality.)

Home Visits

Home visits are available, and where possible should be requested before 10:30am. However unnecessary visits are made which reduce the time available to see patients at the surgery.

A home visit by a GP is appropriate where a patient is either terminally ill or bed bound - when travel by car could cause a deterioration in the medical condition or unacceptable discomfort.

A visit may be made (but more usually an emergency ambulance is sent) when there is myocardial infarction (heart attack), severe shortness of breath or severe haemorrhage (bleeding).

Situation where home visits are not deemed necessary:

• Symptoms of fever, cold, cough, sore throat, flu, back pain, earache, headache, diarrhoea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are well enough to be brought to the surgery by car.
• Children with a temperature are not at further risk from going outdoors.  They may not be well enough to walk or travel by bus but car transport would be acceptable.
• Common problems in the elderly such as poor mobility, joint pain and generally feeling ill would also be best treated at the surgery where we have more resources.  The exception to this is if the patient is bed bound.
• The doctor should not be expected to spend time on a visit due to transport difficulties.  Please ask for help of friends or neighbours or consider the use of a taxi service.

Telephone Recording

Telephone conversations are recorded to help ensure quality.  Recordings may be used for training and monitoring.  However, this will not compromise patient confidentialty.