Please note that we have introduced a new improved system making appointments online called EMIS Patient Access. Please contact reception to get set up.

Appointments

We would remind patients that if you consider your condition to be life threatening dial 999 or attend hospital without delay.

We offer several different types of appointments:

• Advance/Routine - typically 2-3 weeks in advance, offering flexibility and convenience for non urgent issues
• Telephone - flexible, with fast access and good availability, but limited if examination required
• Extended Hours - the practice now has appointments on a Wednesday morning from 7.30am-8.30am for patient who are unable to attend the practice during normal working hours.  Please ask reception for more details when you call to book.
• Emergency - reserved for acute presentations and emergencies, triaged by medical staff

To help us triage your appointment to your satisfaction our reception staff will ask why you wish to see the GP.  This is to ensure the most appropriate and most effective care available to you.  Reception may signpost you to a more appropriate service e.g. physiotherapy, pharmacy team, practice nurse or the pharmacy 1st service at your local chemist.  This will help to cut down the waiting time and ensure your issue is dealt with as quickly as possible.  You may also be referred to our Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) for clinical triage,  she will call you back and assess your symptoms over the phone.  She may ask you to come in to be seen by herself or the 1st available GP.

Please remember that the allotted time for your appointment is 10 minutes.  Please inform the receptionist if you have more complex or multiple issues so that they can find the most appropriate length of appointment for you.

LATENESS POLICY

Patients have a duty to attend pre-booked appointments promptly and to take into account logistical difficulties or the time involved in travelling to the surgery.  The practice will, as far as practicable, see patients who arrive late, however this may be at the end of surgery and will therefore involve a considerable wait for those who do not wish to re-book.  Patients must remain within the reception if prepared to wait for a gap in the surgery or until the end of the surgery.

It is generally inappropriate to delay patients who have arrived on time to accommodate earlier patients who have arrived late, however where an opportunity develops (for example where an earlier patient has been seen quickly and the GP becomes "ahead of time") it may be possible to see a late arrival in the gap.

If the patient states they need to be seen, staff will inform the GP who will decide if the patient is to be seen using their medical discretion, if a late patient chooses to wait to be seen by the GP, the GP will again, use their medical discretion to determine what can be dealt with during the consultation.  Under certain circumstances the patient may be seen by an alternative GP within the practice.

The practice will monitor and record incidents of lateness within the clinical system and a series of warning letters will be issued to persistent offenders.  This may ultimately result in the patient being removed from the practice register.

NON ATTENDANCE (DNA)

Due to the high demand on the practice for appointments patients must allow 24 hours notice of cancellation in order to avoid a warning letter, persistent DNA's will result in removal from the practice register.  If you are unable to give 24 hours notice, patients must contact the practice to provide a valid reason why they are unable to attend.  Please note this may also result in a warning letter or removal from the practice register.