Our priority is always to care for those that need us most, when they need us most. However, we also want to provide a well-organised, structured service that is available to all and convenient within your busy lives.
The services at the surgery are a finite resource and how we organise and deploy them determines our responsiveness to our patients.
How To Access Same Day Services
These are for urgent medical problems that require medical attention on the same day. You are a very well informed population of patients and are very good at identifying which problems require urgent medical attention.
Some of these require an ambulance (eg. Chest pain; acute shortness of breath; funny turns; sudden onset of weakness in face or limbs).
Some of these require attendance to Accident & Emergency (A&E) or the Minor Injury Unit (eg. Injuries; animal bites; lacerations).
Some can be dealt with by the excellent local pharmacy service (eg. Conjunctivitis; coughs; colds; sore throats)
BY PHONE As close to 08:30am as possible
All routine requests will be clinically triaged and all urgent calls dealt with that day.
How To Arrange Routine Appointments
Blood Tests
Request via eConsult, this is on the home page of our website, or if you have no access to the internet please submit your request by letter, ensure you detail your name, address and date of birth, so we can accurately identify you. Each letter should be for one patient and for one problem only, as it will be scanned and saved in to your medical record.
Reception will contact you to book an appointment.
Nurse Appointments for:
- Cervical smear
- Injections
- Wound care/dressings
- Suture and /or clip removal
Please phone reception to book an appointment.
Doctor Appointments
In accordance with NHS England guidance the surgery operates a total triage model.
This involves a senior Doctor at the practice reviewing every request for a Doctor appointment.
This enables the Doctor to review each request and ensure the most clinically urgent or important problems are prioritised and seen soonest, to make the best use of the available appointment slots.
They will arrange any test of investigations that would add value to a subsequent consultation, and arrange any onward referral if that is the correct pathway for the clinical problem.
For many years patients have asked for an electronic method of contacting the surgery. After much research, the surgery selected the most popular system approved by NHSE: eConsult - which allows messages from patients to be delivered directly in to a Doctor ‘inbox’.
The system uses artificial intelligence, and has built in safety measures; some trigger words may present red flags (eg. Chest pain; shortness of breath).
It is not yet perfect, but provides a safe, effective portal for patients to communicate with the practice and for your request to be entered directly in to your medical records.
eCONSULT
Make your request via eConsult, the portal for this is found below this information piece. Simply follow the prompts and answer the questions, including attaching photos when relevant.
BY LETTER
This option is available to those patients who do not have access to the internet, please submit your request in writing via a letter, ensure you detail your name, address and date of birth, so we can accurately identify you. Detail any symptoms, when they started or occur, along with any other information you think may be helpful.
Each letter should be for one patient and for one problem only, as it will be scanned and saved in to your medical record.
PHONE
This option is reserved for those patients who are unable to use the internet or write a letter (we would expect this to be a very small number of our patients, and we will flag their records accordingly).
We realise that using a web-based portal is a different way of accessing our services and we are immensely grateful to all the patient feedback and suggestions during this challenging period.
Our triage system ensures:
- The telephone lines are free for urgent medical problems and our most vulnerable patients.
- Urgent requests can be dealt with quickly
- Planned appointments can be swiftly scheduled far quicker than previously with useful information provided by eConsult/letter available to the Doctors in advance.
Long Term Condition Annual Reviews / Regular Reviews
The surgery has developed and started a proactive program for arranging annual reviews for:
- Pre-diabetes
- Diabetes
- Asthma
- COPD
- Hypertension
- CVD
- Medication Reviews
Most annual reviews will be carried out in your birthday month, we will be in touch to arrange any blood tests required and ask you to complete pre-appointment questionnaires in advance of your review appointment; this will allow us to conduct some reviews by phone for those that are working or less mobile.
