How to see the doctor or nurse
We only see patients by appointment. You can phone the practice or come into reception during opening hours to make an appointment.
Please help us by:
- making a separate appointment for each person who needs to be seen
- letting us know as soon as possible if you want to cancel or change the appointment
- arriving on time for your appointment. Late patients may be asked to rebook.
People who keep missing appointments may be removed from the practice list.
Sometimes the doctors and nurses have to deal with emergencies or difficult problems. Please be patient if you are not seen on time .
From 1st April 2011 we are offering patients a new on-line facility which will allow patients to request medication and make a doctors appointment using EMIS Access.
Patients will be able to view, book or cancel appointments on-line whatever time of the day or night. Currently you will only be able to make one appointment with a GP at a time on-line but if you need to make another appointment you can still do this in person or over the phone. If you make an appointment on-line and subsequently fail to attend we may suspend the facility to make appointments on-line for a short period.
What to do next - in order to use EMIS Access you must first register for this service by asking reception for an online registration form. We will print you a registration letter with all the information you need including your PIN, practice ID, Access ID and NHS number you can create your account using this website or http://www.emisaccess.co.uk/
In order to ensure that GP and Practice Nurse appointments are booked appropriately - please do not book an appointment with the GP for the following - travel and childrens immunisations, dressings, removal of stitches, asthma/COPD check, ear syringing, blood tests/blood pressure checks, cervical smear/contraception. Please check with reception and make an appointment with the Practice Nurse or Health Care Assistant for these appointments.
Failed Appointments
We try to offer our patients a good service but we realise that sometimes there may be a long wait until the next appointment. We constantly look at the number of appointments we have available for the doctors and nurses and how we can improve the service we provide. Every week approximately 50 patients fail to keep their appointments which is over 8 hours worth of appointments every week. Please remember if you cannot keep your appointment or no longer need it, please telephone or drop into the practice and cancel it so we can offer the appointment to another patient. If you are unable to do this yourself we are happy for you to ask someone else to cancel appointments on your behalf.
'Personal doctoring'
So that we can give you the best care, always try to make your appointments with the same doctor. You can choose any of the doctors to be your 'usual doctor' and you can make pre-booked and 'same-day' appointments to see them. The same-day appointments are given out at 8.00am for the morning and 1.30pm for the afternoon - please ring early. Sometimes your usual doctor may not be available. If so, one of the other doctors will be happy to see you. It is important that you read the attached sheet for more detailed information on our appointment system.
Your usual doctor will be responsible for dealing with your repeat prescriptions. We will tell them as soon as possible about any important out-of-hours calls or visits by the other doctors. If you become housebound you will go onto your usual doctor's list for routine visits. This doctor will be responsible for visiting you from time to time, dealing with your repeat prescriptions and talking to other health professionals involved in your care.
Telephone advice
Some problems can be sorted out on the phone by talking to the doctor or nurse. Please phone between 12.00 and 12.30pm or between 2pm and 3.30pm. A receptionist will take your details and advise you when a GP will return your call.