Appointments
**Important: Every week the surgery has many non attended appointments. If you are unable to make an appointment please telephone reception in time for your booking to be offered to another patient.
Consulting Hours
- Monday to Friday 09.00 - 11.00
- Afternoon sessions are available 13.30 - 15.30 and 16.00 - 17:50
Seeing a Doctor
You may see any doctor in the practice. However, it is preferable to see one doctor consistently for any single period of illness. Surgeries are by appointment, which can be made personally, or by telephoning 0844 477 2430.
If you feel you have a genuinely urgent medical problem for which advice or treatment will not wait until the next available appointment, arrangements will be made for you to see a doctor or nurse on that day. However, you are unlikely to see the doctor of your choice.
Please inform us as soon as possible if for any reason you cannot keep an appointment.
Please note! Patients late for appointments may not be seen and will need to make another appointment.
Our telephone lines are very busy between 11am-2pm and we suggest, where possible, that you ring between 2pm-6pm when our telephones are less busy.
Nurse Appointments
Practice nurse surgeries are run daily by appointment between: 09.00-10.45 & 16.00-18.00 each appointiont has a duration of 10 minutes.
Chaperone
Please note a chaperone is available on request.
Booking Appointments
Telephone Number: 0844 477 2430
Doctor and Nurse consultations are booked appointments for a duration of 10 minutes and can be booked by telephoning 0844 477 2430.
You can use this system to check or cancel an appointment, regardless of the method used to book it. When you telephone the surgery, select the option for the automated booking service and then follow the simple instructions. When the surgery is open choose OPTION 2. When the surgery is closed choose OPTION 3
Cancelling Appointments: Please inform us as soon as possible if for any reason you cannot keep an appointment.
Cost of Calls: Please note that the 0844 number is not a premium line number. Calls to the 0844 number from landline numbers are charged at normal local call rates although calls from mobiles will cost more.
Please note patients late for their appointments may not be seen and will need to make another appointment.
Making the best use of your doctor's appointment
Your time with your doctor or nurse is precious and we would like to help you make the most of it. Please try to choose the most suitable person to help deal with the problem.
We all like to see our 'own doctor' but there are many other people to choose from, particularly when there is a 2 or 3 week wait to see a particular doctor. All doctors and nurses have access to your notes on the computer so if you have seen one doctor the others will be able to understand what has happened. If you can't see one doctor then another may well be able to help you.
Please remember that as well as the six partners we employ two highly skilled GPs and four extremely competent GP registrars who can help you.
The practice nurses are skilled at providing many of the services that were traditionally provided by doctors. If you need,for example, a blood pressure check or a repeat prescription for the contraceptive pill a nurse can do this for you.
Please consider asking the receptionist to guide you to an appropriate professional.
On the day of the appointment
If you cannot make it, or find yourself late, then please try to call. If we can reschedule your appointment we can offer the slot to someone else and find an appropriate time for you to come.
During the appointment please bear in mind the following.
- For each surgery the doctors are booked, in advance, to see 12 patients at 10 minute intervalsover 2 hours.
- They then see people at 5 minute intervals for 'book on the day' emergencyproblems.
- 10 minutes is long enough to deal with most single problems but it becomes hardto deal, efficiently, with 3 or 4 problems. It helps, if you have more than one problem, to writedown a list and decide your priorities. The doctor may need to deal with some of them overthe course of several appointments.
- The 5 minute appointments are designed to deal with a single emergency problem. We haveto leave it up to you, the patient, to decide what constitutes an emergency but it should besomething that you think cannot wait for a couple of days. These emergency appointments areshared out between the available doctors and we cannot guarantee which doctor you will see.
- The doctors do try to run to time but the nature of the work means that occasionally we will bedelayed. We will try to keep you informed if this happens. Please try to be patient with us.