Appointments

Appointments can be booked either in person, by phone or online. If you wish to utilise the online service please use the askmyGP  (purple) tile on our home screen.

As a Practice we provide on average each week 1000 appointments to see a Doctor, Nurse Practitioner or Paramedic. 300 appointments to see a nurse and 500 appointments to see a Health Care Assistant (HCA). Most of these take place within the surgery with a number of home visits taking place each day. The Practice employs a very highly skilled nursing and HCA  team who are able to deal with many diagnostic and monitoring procedures that would traditionally have been dealt with by a doctor e.g. 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and long-term condition reviews. This helps to relieve some of the pressure on doctor appointments.

We provide a mix of acute (urgent) and routine appointments with Doctors, Nurse Practitioners or Paramedic. We provide roughly a 50:50 split between acute and routine appointments.

For all appointment requests, we ask that you use our askmyGP system using the different forms to guide you to the right clinician. If you can’t access the internet then our Receptionists will be happy to help.

Acute/urgent appointments are kept for the same day and this means a clinician will speak to you that day and assess your needs and how they can help you the best. Due to the nature of these requests, you cannot pre-book. Examples of situations deemed to be urgent would be a suspected chest infection or acute pain. Please note that you will be offered a clinician working on the acute team that day and so you may not be seen by your usual clinician. We constantly monitor acute demand to try and ensure that we offer adequate acute capacity. The reception team are trained to sign-post patients with specific symptoms to the most appropriate service – for example, patients with a suspected heart attack should ring 999, thereby accessing the most appropriate care in a timely manner.

For routine appointments, we will send you a link via SMS following your askmyGP request to allow you to speak to or see in person a clinician of your choice at a time and date that is convenient. Alternatively, if you are unable to use askmyGP our Receptionist will take your details and your request will be sent to the most appropriate team.

Wherever possible we will try to give patients access to their clinician of choice. Occasionally due to holidays, busy schedules etc. this may not be possible within a time scale that the patient feels is appropriate for their need. In that instance, they will be offered an alternative clinician. There are obviously a finite number of clinical hours available but as a practice we have one of the highest doctor/patient ratios in the country with under 1,500 patients to each doctor. In some areas of the UK this figure is closer to 3,000 patients per doctor.

We will always try to accommodate a patient’s schedule and book a time and date that suits them. Sometimes this just isn’t possible and we do ask that patients are as flexible as possible when it comes to appointment times.

When you ring our Receptionists they do not book appointments directly on your request – this is because they take your details, and the reason for your request and this information is then sent to trained teams (whether acute or routine) who will direct you to the most appropriate place – this may be an appointment with our MSK Practitioners, a paramedic, a Nurse Practitiner, a Doctor, a Mental Health Practitioner, or our Medicines Management Team depending on your request

Chaperones

All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present during any examination where they feel that one is required – for example during an intimate examination. The purpose of the chaperone is to act as a safeguard not only for the patient but also the doctor or nurse. It would be usual for a female member of staff to act as a chaperone for a female patient and likewise for a male member of staff to chaperone for a male patient.

It is recommended that this should usually be an appropriately trained member of practice staff but, on occasion, a family member or friend may be appropriate.

All members of the nursing and health care assistant team, together with some members of reception and secretarial staff, have appropriate training to act as chaperones.

Patients are encouraged, whenever possible, to ask for a chaperone at the time of booking an appointment. This ensures that there are minimal delays during an examination, rather than having to wait for a chaperone to become available.

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.