A number of doctors’ telephone appointments can be booked up to 2 weeks in advance.
The remaining appointments are kept free for booking the same day day. We will try very hard to accommodate you in your first phone call.
We will always try to see medically urgent cases the same day. Surgeries are held from 8.30am every morning Monday to Friday and an afternoon surgery is also held on every weekday.
Please use the NHS App to book your appointments online.
Later appointments are available with a doctor on Mondays and Thursdays from 6.30 to 8pm. Some appointments are also available on some Friday evenings and some Saturdays. These are designed to make it easier for people who are at work all day to have a routine doctor’s consultation – they are by appointment only and may be booked up to 2 weeks in advance. If you are free to see the doctor during office hours, please leave the evening and Saturday appointments for those who really need them!
Information about our Appointments
Our trained reception staff will ask some questions about how we can help you. This will enable us to provide you with the most appropriate care as quickly as possible.
This might mean our team directs you to see a health professional other than a GP, such as a Nurse, Health Care assistant, First Contact Physio, Pharmacist or Community Pharmacist.
Please be assured that any information given by you will be treated strictly confidentially. If you don't wish to say what your issue is, that will be respected but may result in longer wait times if we are unable to direct your appointment appropriately.
Due to overwhelming demand and pressure of workload we are changing our afternoon booking system.
The practice continues to always see patients who contact us with an urgent medical issue on the same day. The number of these extras at the end of doctors’ sessions can become too many and constitute a potential clinical risk.
To meet same day emergency appointment demand, we will now start the emergency session at 2pm, rather than at the end of the doctor’s afternoon session.
In order to access an emergency appointment you will need to telephone us as soon as possible after 2pm so that the emergency appointment workload can be managed. You will be asked the reason for your emergency appointment request so that this information can then be passed onto the doctor for triage.
Emergency appointments will not be at a set time and will require you to be available to take a telephone call from the doctor at any time from 2pm. If you do not want a telephone call and would like to see the doctor in person then you will be asked to come to the surgery immediately. You may however have to wait and this wait time will depend on the number of other emergency appointments.
The doctor may also review your issue and ask for a different clinician to contact you or ask reception to call you to arrange a different appointment.
Our pharmacist is trained in managing minor illness and his afternoon appointments are all now available to support the demand for urgent and emergency appointments in the afternoon.
NHS England have provided the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) referral service and we can now also offer referrals where appropriate to New Road Pharmacy. They will offer you a same day consultation.
Some routine appointments can be booked two weeks in advance. These appointments are released every day at 8.30am and 2pm for prebooking. We have made 15% of our overall appointments prebookable two weeks in advance but these get booked quickly by patients either telephoning the surgery or booking online via for example the NHS app. If you would like more information on how to install the NHS app and connect to our surgery please see https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-app/
Feedback we have had from patient is that we should provide more prebookable appointments but we have to restrict this number in order to keep enough unbooked appointments for our same day provision.
Same day appointments can be booked every day at 8.30am and 2pm, either telephoning the surgery or booking online via for example the NHS app. If you would like more information on how to install the NHS app and connect to tour surgery please see https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-app/
As well as minor illness appointments, our pharmacists provide appointments for medication queries, medication reviews, structured medication reviews which are longer half hour appointments for more complex patients and learning disability reviews.
If your concern is regarding a case of suspected measles please do not book a face to face appointment but contact us either by telephone or by completing an Online Consultation.
You are welcome to book a ‘telephone consultation’ with the doctor or nurse.
Patients are generally seen at the surgery, but between the hours of 8.00am and 6.30pm patients may be seen at home if the doctor considers a home visit necessary because of the patient’s medical condition.
Please call the surgery as soon as possible if you believe a home visit to be necessary.
Visits may be carried out by the most appropriate member of the practice team.
Travel Health Questionnaire
To help us offer the appropriate advice, please fill out the online form before coming to see the nurse.
We are offering a new approach to improve access for patients to a same-day consultation with a healthcare professional. The aim is to direct patients to the most appropriate person to help them, which may be a GP or another health care professional community pharmacist.
If your symptoms can be resolved by a booked consultation with the community pharmacist instead of the GP, you will be given a same-day referral to a pharmacy of your choice. Your consultation may take place on the phone or in person at the pharmacy.
We think this is a good thing. We are working closely with your local pharmacist who is a highly trained and skilled clinician, experienced in treating minor illnesses. Once you see how great they are at helping with minor ailments we don’t think you’ll look back.
This will also help us to free up GP appointments for people with more complex health needs and ensure that everyone gets treated at the right time, by the right healthcare professional.
Our Physio offers appointments for people with new muscular skeletal issues. Patients are assessed and can be referred into the MSK service as well as being offered advice for patients’ self-care either to resolve an issue or to help them while they are waiting for their MSK appointment. This is not a treatment service but can assist patients in understanding the best options for their ongoing care.
If you suffer from a chronic condition that requires monitoring, for example, Diabetes, then you will be contacted by the surgery to arrange your review appointment. These are either with a doctor, pharmacist or one of our nurse led specialist clinics.
We no longer offer appointment booking in the practice and 8:30am and 2pm as we used to pre COVID as l this unfairly prioritises those who are able to get to the practice in person and unfairly disadvantages those who are too sick, frail, disabled or unable to attend in person for other reasons, such as being at work.
Having a single phone-based appointments system is the only way to enable a fair patient queuing system although we do also offer online appointment booking via the NHS app.
We are keen to hear what you think and will be listening to your comments and feedback about your experience of using this new appointment service. If you would like to join our Patient Participation Group and have the opportunity to be involved in discussions about our services then please complete a PPG sign up form here
Alternatively, you can complete a Friend and Family test form here