When you ring the surgery the receptionist are trained to ask a few important questions, this will help direct your call to the most appropriate clinician and with the right level of priority, this could be a Pharmacist, Physiotherapist or Advanced Nurse Practitioner. 

Our current booking system consist of the following:

GP/ANP Appointments

Routine on the day telephone appointments - These are not able to be prebooked, these are booked by calling at 8:00 for a morning appointment and 13:30 for an afternoon appointment. These are limited and patients may need to call back the following day. If the clinician feels they need to see you face to face they will arrange an appointment for you.

Urgent on the day telephone appointments - These appointments are with the Duty Doctor and are for patients who are acutely unwell.

Telephone Results appointments - These are prebooked by the receptionist if the clincian has requested to speak to you routinely. 

Nurse/HCA Appointments

Blood clinics, Dressing changes, Smears, Baby Immunisations, Asthma Reviews, COPD Reviews, Diabetic Reviews, Rheumatoid Arthritis Reviews, NHS Health Checks and other immunisations/injections as requested. 

GP telephone assessment is a national system that has been developed and tested by the NHS Institute. The evidence shows that of all the requests for appointments, only approximately one third actually need to see a GP, one third needed to be seen by another member of the primary healthcare team and one third do not need to see anyone – the issue can be dealt with over the telephone.

This system will enable us to run more efficiently, better manage the demand for appointments and will ensure that those who need to see a GP should find it easier to be seen. The system should run more effectively for patients and the practice ensuring that the best service is accessed for each patient dependent on clinical need and assessment.

Since all appointment requests will initially be assessed by a GP, the GP can make a clinical assessment as to how quickly a patient needs to be seen and can book the appropriate appointment. For most patients this will continue to be on the same day but for a few patients this may mean a few days in advance. This may be particularly useful for patients who work. 

We have built into the surgery session a number of telephone assessment slots throughout the day. Patients will be able to request a specific GP to call them back if the GP has availability. Our aim is that this will happen whenever possible but we cannot guarantee this since it will depend also on the individual GP workload. It is helpful if you don’t mind which GP calls you; in this case one of the GPs working that day will call you – they will all have access to your complete medical record.

A home visit by a doctor or a specialist paramedic is available for patients who need to be seen and are too ill to attend the surgery in person.  A visit can be requested by telephoning the surgery before 10:00am.

A doctor will always ring first to assess the suitability of the request.  As facilities at the surgery for examination and treatment are so much more comprehensive, it is in your best interest to attend for an appointment rather than requesting a home visit. A doctor can also see four to six patients in the surgery in the same time required for a visit. 

Home visits are usually undertaken by our attached specialist paramedic.

It is important that you inform the reception staff if you are unable to attend your appointment, this will allow that appointment to be offered to another patient. If you fail to notify the Practice that you are unable to attend, you will be sent a letter informing you that you have defaulted from your appointment. Persistent defaulters maybe removed from the list.

We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments.

To have this service you will need to register by giving written consent to reception.

Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.

Please attend your appointment on time, if you are late you may not be seen. 

If you require an interpreter to attend with you when you see your Doctor please notify the receptionist and she will arrange this for you.

We are fortunate to have Dr Kaiser Munir who is fluent in British Sign Language.

Insurance reports/medical forms are non-NHS work and therefore will attract a charge, this may take up to 4 weeks to be completed.