Appointments

How to make an Appointment

Except in an emergency, all consultations are by appointment.

Appointments and appointment cancellations may be made either:

• via our online services
• in person when the surgery is open
• by telephone (01488) 682507 when the surgery is open (Press 1 for Appointments, Press 2 for Home Visit requests, Press 3 for Test Results and general enquiries). Press 4 for urgents.

Office Opening Hours

The surgery is normally open during the following times:

• Monday - Friday 8.00am - 6.30pm

Please note that the surgery is open/closed every other Saturday and closed on National Holidays.

Outside of these hours in the case of a medical emergency please call NHS 111.

Surgery Appointments

The standard bookable surgery appointment times are normally:

Monday - Friday	8.50am - 6.00pm

All these times can and are regularly extended to incorporate "extras" and emergencies as required, and our actual consulting hours are therefore substantially longer.

Full Staff Meetings

Please note we have full staff meetings on the following dates between 1pm-2pm:

• Monday 4th February 2019
• Monday 4th March 2019

During this time kindly note there will be NO STAFF at Reception. Please try to avoid the Surgery at this time. Only Emergency calls will be taken.

Seeing your own Doctor

The partners believe in personal doctoring and continuity of care, and prefer you to see your own doctor whenever possible. Usually you will be offered the first available appointment, and urgent cases will always be seen on the same day.

When a doctor is absent from the practice, a partner from the practice covers all his patients.

If you cannot keep your appointment, please let the receptionist know. This will enable us to reallocate your slot for another patient.

Home Visits

The doctor will visit where a patient is too ill to come to the surgery.

Most of our patients come to the surgery where there are better facilities for examination. Please remember that a doctor can see five patients in the surgery in the time it takes to see one patient at home. By saving doctors travelling time, there is more time available for consultations.

If you or your child feel too ill to wait in the waiting-room, the receptionist will show you to one of the consulting rooms on arrival.

If you are too ill to attend surgery, however, you will of course be visited at home.

To request a home visit telephone 01488 682507 before 10.00am whenever possible.

Be ready to give the receptionist clear details of the problem as well as name, address and telephone number. At times it may be more appropriate to offer you an emergency appointment at the surgery rather than a home visit.

Requests for non-urgent problems received after 10 am may be dealt with the following day.

Cancellation Line

If you are not able to keep your appointment please use the Cancellation line.

Please call us on 1488 682507 and simply choose Option 5 from the welcome message and leave your details as requested.

Thank you for helping us - we may be able to offer this appointment to another patient.

Did Not Attend Figures

Most of our patients understand that it can sometimes be difficult to get a routine appointment with a GP or nurse. One reason for this is DNA’S (did not attend).

A large number of Patients fail to keep their appointment at this Surgery every month. This often stops other patients from getting a much needed appointment. This is an awful waste of precious NHS time and money.

Recent figures:

Month	Number of appointments missed
October 2018	122
November 2018	140
December 2018	99

Please help us to help you - if you no longer need your appointment please let us know.