Appointments

Self-Care

Help and support available from many National and Local Organisations

Visit our Self Help Zone

Pharmacy

Pharmacists are qualified healthcare professionals who can offer clinical advice, over the counter medicines and their use, to effectively and safely manage a range of minor health concerns. They can also help you to decide whether you'll need to see a doctor. You don't need an appointment and you won't even be asked to make a purchase. Every pharmacy also has a private consultation area for you to talk about your symptoms in private if you prefer.

Locate your local pharmacy

When you ring the practice the phone will be answered by one of our trained Patient Advisors, they will be able to direct you to the best Clinician to deal with you problem. This means they do need to ask you a few questions about the reason you are calling. We are using a variety of telephone, video and face to face appointments. Coronavirus is still in the community and patients are requested not to come to the practice if they have symptoms. This is because if the staff contract the virus, they are not able to work, this can cause a major disruption to the services we can provide.

Patients can have access to medical advice by either:

• calling the practice on 01243 826541 and booking an appointment
• submitting an electronic request for medical advice and consultations via eConsult.

The way you receive medical care has changed

This will mean:

• Your prescriptions will be sent electronically to your chosen pharmacist - you do not need to go to your practice to collect the script
• Your practice will not be prescribing medicines that are available to buy over the counter

Please make sure you:

• Check online to see how your practice is changing
• Do not go to your GP practice unless invited to do so
• If you have symptoms of coronavirus stay at home and follow the latest advice on the NHS website

You can register to book appointments online. To use SystmOnline you will need a Practice ID number and Access ID number which is obtained from the practice, and, in conjunction with a password, will be unique to you. Please ask at reception for more information.

When booking an appointment online, you will see that there are different types of appointments, one is with a GP (called GP to be booked by patient), one is with a Nurse Practitioner (called minor illness only) and one is for blood tests (called Blood test requested by GP).

Please do not book anything other than a minor illness or blood test in the appointments with those names otherwise the appointment will have to be re-booked. It would also be really useful to put a brief description of the reason for the appointment. This will ensure you do not have a wasted journey.

Find out more about SystmOnline

Your doctor, Nurse Practitioner or Practitioner will be happy to give you advice on the telephone. If your request is routine then you can pre-book a telephone appointment with a Clinician up to 2 weeks in advance. We have phone appointments available on the day should you have a query that can't wait. We ask that if you make a phone appointment, you make sure you are available to take the call as the GP will only try twice to contact you. Should you miss the call, you will have to re-book it another day. 

Visit our Sickness Certificates page

Visit our Travel Information page

We will provide a home visit if the patient is too ill to attend the surgery, or they are completely housebound, in a care home or nursing home.

We regret that we can no longer take a patient's travel arrangements into account when deciding if a home visit is needed.

With regard to babies and children, a responsible adult should be available to bring them to surgery, and we have a practice policy to see children under two years old within three hours of your request.

Where possible, requests for visits should be made before 10:30am, to enable Paramedic Practitioner (PP) or doctors to plan their rounds after morning surgery. The receptionist will ask for your name, address, current working telephone number and a brief description of the illness. This enables the PP or doctor to call you back if needed, to determine the best course of action. The decision as to where the consultation will take place is at the PP or doctors' discretion.

Time is always at a premium, and up to six patients can be seen in the surgery in the time it takes to make one home visit. Please help us to manage this scarce resource.