Appointments
All consultations for doctors and nurses are by appointment only. You may request a doctor of your choice for routine appointments. All routine on-the-day appointments are available by telephoning the surgery from 8am each morning. In addition to these on-the-day routine appointments, there are a number of appointments that can be pre-booked at one, two and seven day intervals and these are available from 8am each morning for patients to book.
All of the administration team are highly trained in care navigation and will ask for some details to ensure you are seen by the appropriate healthcare professional for your need.
We would ask that you attend your appointment on time, as patients who arrive late will only be seen at the doctor’s discretion and may be asked to make an alternative appointment. Consultation lasts approximately 10 minutes and the doctors endeavour to run to time. However, appointments can run over time, especially if a patient has a difficult problem or requires hospital admission. We appreciate your patience should you experience a delay. Please approach reception if you have been waiting more than 20 minutes after your appointment time and the receptionist will ensure you are marked in.
Emergency Consultations
In the event that all the routine appointments have been taken for the day and you have a medical problem that cannot wait until the next day we will fit you in to an emergency slot. These consultations are added to the end of the doctor’s surgery and therefore you may be kept waiting. We do not offer a choice of doctor or time for emergency consultations, as they are fitted in to already full surgeries.
If you request an emergency consultation, the receptionist will ask for the reason and a contact telephone number, to allow the doctor to assess the urgency. Please only ask for an emergency consultation if your problem cannot wait until the next day. The doctor will deal only with emergency issues during that appointment and may ask you to book a routine appointment to discuss any non-urgent matters.
Telephone Advice
If you feel your problem could be dealt with over the telephone, we do offer a number of telephone appointments with GPs each day. The GPs will also, sometimes, request a telephone appointment to discuss a result, medication request or hospital letter. At the time of booking the receptionist will give you a 1hour slot, during which the GP will endeavour to call you on the number provided. Please appreciate, as with any other appointment, the GP may be running late.
We ask that you make yourself available to answer your telephone during that timeframe, as GPs may not have time to keep trying. You may be asked to book an alternative appointment if you fail to answer during the appointment timeframe.
Cancellations
If you cannot attend an appointment for any reason please inform us as soon as possible in order for us to give the slot to someone else.