Appointments

The doctors work a rota system within the advertised times.

Our incoming telephone lines are normally busier between 8.00 am – 9.00 am and you may experience some delay in contacting the surgery if you phone at this time. Please don’t worry if you can’t get through straight away as we normally have appointments available throughout the day. If for any reason we cannot offer you an appointment that day we will ask you to call back the next morning.

However, if you feel you have to be seen urgently the receptionist will request your details and you will be seen by a doctor if the need is urgent. You may not be able to specify which doctor you wish to see and you may have to be prepared to wait.

Telephone Advice

Doctors are usually available for telephone advice between 10.45 am – 11.00 am, however you may be asked to leave your details and a doctor will contact you. At other times they may be busy and interruptions during surgery are upsetting for both doctors and patients. Matters of any urgent nature can be taken at any time and passed to the ‘on call’ doctor.

Cancellations

Appointments are valuable and failure to attend means that the appointment and doctor’s time is wasted. Please be responsible and cancel any appointment you cannot attend at the earliest opportunity.

Home Visits

If possible please try to telephone reception before 10:30am if you require a home visit.

A doctor or nurse may phone you back as it may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or that it would be more appropriate to send a nurse, or indeed arrange a hospital attendance.

House visits are only available for patients who are housebound because of illness or disability.

Please remember that several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the Health Centre.

Training Practice

As our Surgery is an established training practice for medical students, student nurses and qualified doctors who are training in General Practice, there maybe at times students are “sitting in” during consultations.

This forms part of the vital training for our clinicians of the future and we are grateful to patients who allow students to be present during consultations, but you are under no obligation to do this.

If you prefer not to have a student present, please advise reception staff upon arrival, or to the doctor or nurse.