Appointments

Our reception staff will try to find and appointment with the most appropriate doctor and at a time that is convenient to you. This may not always be possible, but the team will do their best to find the best fit.

For repeat prescriptions, appointment bookings, test results, and general enquiries please contact the surgery during normal surgery hours - Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 6:00pm.

The practice will ensure that you are offered an appointment within 48 hours, but this may not necessarily be with the doctor of your choice.

You may book up to four weeks in advance to see a specific doctor or book an appointment on a specific day, but these appointments may be limited.

The phone lines are very busy when the surgery opens at 08.00 am and again at 14.00 pm in the afternoon. This means that your call may be held in a queue. Unless your call is urgent, please avoid calling during these times.

For antenatal, postnatal, smear tests and private medicals, please advise the receptionist that you need a longer appointment. Please endeavour to be on time and let us know is you are unable to keep your appointment. 

The practice tries to keep to time with appointments. If you are kept waiting, please be patient. The doctor may be dealing with an emergency or complicated problem.

 

Telephone Consults
TELEPHONE: 023 8086 6990

If your enquiry can be answered on the telephone you may request a telephone consultation, whereby the doctor will return your call after morning or evening surgery.

More patients are now using telephone consultations as they can save a considerable amount of time for you and the doctors.

Please make sure that we have your correct contact number and it helps if you can give the receptionists some idea of your enquiry so that the doctor is better prepared when he calls.

Home Visits
TELEPHONE: 023 8086 6999

Our doctors can see four patients at the surgery in the time it takes to undertake a single home visit. For this reason, we ask our patients to come to the practice where this is possible. 

If you are unable to travel to the surgery due to your medical condition and need a home visit, please let us know as early as possible to allow the doctors to plan their calls more effectively. Call 023 8086 6999 to arrange the visit.

Please note that babies and children can often be safely brought to the surgery where they will be seen as quickly as possible. This includes those who may be infectious, and can be accommodated in a side room.

Please ring the main switchboard before 9:00am to arrange a visit. The doctor may wish to speak to you first and may call you back to give further advice, so please be prepared to give some information about your condition to our reception staff who take your call, including a telephone number that you can be contacted on.

Home visits are normally made between morning and afternoon surgeries.

Out of Hours
Please reserve out of hours calls for emergencies only.

Out-of-hours calls are no longer taken by the doctors from the surgery. This service is now provided by the Out of Hours service. You can access the out-of-hours service by dialing 111. The trained staff will take your details and symptoms and will offer you advice about the best course of action

Other Sources of Help

NHS Direct can give you advice on all aspects of health care. Contact them by phone on 0845 4647 or on-line at www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk.

Emergencies
What To Do In An Emergency

Whatever the day or time, if you or someone else experiences severe chest pain, loss of blood or suspected broken bones, go to your nearest Emergency Department or call 999.

If you need urgent medical advice during surgery hours, please phone the surgery on 023 8086 6990. Please be prepared to give as much information as possible to the receptionist so that we can deal with your request in the most appropriate manner.

If you need to see a doctor urgently when the surgery is closed please phone the ‘out-of-hours’ service on 111. They will pass a message to the doctor on duty who may phone you to assess your problem.

You might be asked to attend the out-of-hours clinic (or an NHS Walk-In Centre), or receive a home visit.

NHS walk-in centres provide advice and treatment for a range of minor illnesses and injuries.

Alternatively you can phone NHS Direct on 0845 46 47 or visit their website at www.nhsdirect.co.uk.

NHS Direct offers free expert health information and advice 24 hours a day. It can advise you whether you need to go to the nearest A&E (accident and emergency) or if there is an alternative such as visiting an NHS walk-in centre.

For deaf people and those hard of hearing, a telephone services is available on 0845 606 4647.

If English is not your preferred language, you can choose to use a confidential translation service.

Triage

The purpose of Triage is to ensure that all patients are dealt with appropriately by the right member of the team and to ensure that problems are dealt with urgently if necessary.

Every morning we run a service for patients who request an urgent appointment.

When you request such an appointment the receptionist will ask you for your name, telephone number and a brief description of the problem and will pass this to the nursing team or doctors.

One of the medical team may call you back if they need further information.

All staff adhere to strict terms of confidentiality, so please give the receptionist as much information as you can, this helps us to deal with your request as quickly as possible.

We will endeavour to contact you within the hour and therefore ask that you remain available for this time – if your condition deteriorates you should telephone the surgery again.

Questions?

Patients not attending appointments

Some patients fail to recognise that simply not turning up means that appointments are wasted and people with a genuine need to see a doctor or nurse suffer delays and inconvenience.

If you no longer need your appointment or need to re-schedule, please let us know as soon as possible, we can then make your appointment available for another patient. If we can’t offer you an immediate appointment, we may phone back to offer you a cancellation slot if one becomes available.


The surgery is particularly busy on Mondays, especially during the winter months. If your appointment is not urgent, try to book on a less busy day after 10.30am.

If you let us know as soon as possible you can't attend your appointment, we can then make it available for another patient.

If we can’t offer you an immediate appointment, we may phone back to offer you a cancellation slot.

You can book to have a telephone consultation with a doctor if you wish. He or she will ring you at an agreed time on the telephone number you have given.

If you are only available on a mobile phone, you will be expected to ring the practice at the agreed time.

Routine Appointments

If you need to book a routine follow-up appointment with a particular GP you can make an appointment up to four weeks in advance.

The phone lines are busiest from 8:30am to 10:30am and just after lunch. If you can, please phone after 10.30am or later in the afternoon to avoid busy times.

Many routine appointments are for patients who have a long-term or chronic condition that needs monitoring on a regular basis. We will let you know when your next appointment is due with the practice nurse or doctor either by post or email.

If this time is not convenient, please telephone reception to re-arrange it.

It is important to continue your regular check-ups, even if you are feeling well.

Routine appointments are available during normal surgery hours with the practice nurse and/or doctor. We hold regular clinics for many conditions, please see the ‘services and clinics’ section for the full list.

Same Day Appointments

We are a busy practice, and providing some same day appointments makes it easier for you to see a doctor quickly. It would, however, be impractical to make all our appointments bookable on the same day.

We reserve a small number of appointments specifically for those who need to see a Doctor or Nurse that day. But you should remember that we also have a great number of patients who book their routine appointments in advance.

Same Day Appointments are limited in number and are made available at 08:30am - to book a same day appointment please call between 08:30am to 09:30am for a morning appointment or after 2pm for an afternoon appointment.

Our appointments line is closed from 1pm to 2pm

Same Day appointments can be booked at any time from 8.00am on the day you need the appointment for.