Appointments

NHS APP

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You can contact us to request an appointment in three different ways:

• Call us. Our phone lines are open from 8am-6pm Monday to Friday. Please bear in mind that waiting times in the call queue are longer between 8am and 10am, especially on Mondays;
• Use our Digital GP tool, PATCHs, available on the front page of our surgery’s website.
• Walk in. You can walk into the practice during our opening hours if you prefer.

Please be aware that we are now required to triage all requests for appointments that are made by our patients.  Triage is the process of reviewing a patient’s medical symptoms, and making an informed decision on what type of appointment would be most appropriate for that patient.  In order to do this, we need to ask you a number of simple questions, such as describing your symptom(s), asking how long the symptom has been going on for, whether the symptom is getting better or worse, etc.  We also ask our patients if they prefer to see a specific GP.  We ask these questions to all patients requesting an appointment, be it in person, over the phone, or via the PATCHs online service.  Please be aware that PATCHs has additional functionality, and will ask certain safety questions and questionnaires to further establish the nature and severity of your symptom(s).  The more information you can give us, the more likely we will be able to book the most appropriate appointment for you.

We offer three types of appointment: red (same day, urgent), amber (2-4 weeks, semi-urgent) and green (routine).  When we triage your symptoms, our team will book you into one of these appointment types.  One of our GPs oversees the triage process to ensure that appointments are booked safely and appropriately.

Patients wishing to book an appointment for a review of certain long term conditions, for example diabetes, COPD, asthma, severe mental health conditions, and chronic kidney disease, can book these appointments once they have been invited to do so, and these requests are not subject to triage.

Find out more: our different types of doctor appointments

We offer a number of different GP appointments and our reception team are trained to match you to the best one for your circumstances so you are seen by the right person at the right time.

Urgent appointments: you will be added to the duty doctor list for the morning or afternoon session on the day. You should be available to come in to see the GP between 9am and 1pm or 2pm and 6pm that day. If you cannot come in that day a different type of appointment will be better for you.

On the Day appointments: the reception team will offer you the opportunity to choose to see the doctor face to face or to have a telephone call on that day. If you are feeling unwell, we recommend you choose the face to face option.

Advance booked telephone appointments: this should be for a health matter that does not require a face to face appointment. These appointments are good for follow up about a condition you have seen the GP for, or to discuss test results or referrals, or for certain mental health conditions.

General queries which may or may not require an appointment: please submit your query via our digital consultation tool, PATCHs. If we need to book an appointment in order to deal with it, we will generally book a telephone appointment. In some cases, we will book a face to face appointment if the clinician needs to see you in person.

Mum and baby postnatal checks: these appointments are face to face for both mum and newborn babies

Specialist GP appointments: we have regular specific clinics for diabetes, mental health, respiratory illness, and for patients with learning difficulties or other special needs. These appointments are generally for planned review and so our team will reach out to you to book these appointments.

Home Visits: only for patients who are permanently housebound. All emergency visits are added to the Duty Doctor list on the day, and routine planned visits are booked by our frailty team

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