Appointments

Urgent appointments

To request an urgent appointment for today or tomorrow (Monday to Friday):

  • use our appointment request form
  • phone us on 01376 553415, Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6pm
  • visit the surgery and speak with a receptionist, Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6pm

When you get in touch, we’ll ask what you need help with.

We will use the information you give us to choose the most suitable doctor, nurse or health professional to help you.

Routine appointments

To request a routine appointment in the next 7 days:

  • use our appointment request form
  • phone us on 01376 553415, Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6pm
  • visit the surgery and speak with a receptionist, Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6pm
  • use your NHS account (through the NHS website or NHS App) to book a screening test or vaccination

When you get in touch, we’ll ask what you need help with.

We will use the information you give us to choose the most suitable doctor, nurse or health professional to help you.

PATCHS is an online consultation service that allows you to quickly and easily access your GP services.

You will answer a few simple questions and our team will get you the help you need.

Through PATCHS you can request a face to face appointment, a telephone appointment, make a repeat medication request, send dispensary queries and administration requests, ask for a fit/sick note (med3) and more, without having to hold in the telephone queue.

How?
– Create an account by selecting the PATCHS logo on the right, you’ll be asked to enter your email address and set a password.
– Login by entering your e-mail address and password.
– Choose the appropriate option and answer a few simple questions to help us understand your request/problem.
– Your answers are to sent to us and we will respond within 6 hours.
– Initial responses may be via online message or phone, with face-to-face or video consultation appointments scheduled if it is felt necessary unless you have specifically asked for a particular appointment type

You can specify your availability for an appointment which we will always try to accommodate wherever possible, but this may not always be necessary.

Please ensure that you create an account for each registered person so that when your request comes through it comes under the correct patient name.

Your appointment

However you choose to contact us, we may offer you a consultation:

  • by phone
  • face to Face at the surgery, at our Saturday Hub or at an NHS Service Nearby
  • over a video call
  • online via PATCHS

Appointments by phone, video call or by text or email can be more flexible and often means you get help sooner.

Cancelling or changing an appointment

To cancel your appointment:

If you need help when we are closed

If you need medical help now, use NHS 111 online or call 111.

NHS 111 online is for people aged 5 and over. Call 111 if you need help for a child under 5.

Call 999 in a medical or mental health emergency. This is when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk.

If you need help with your appointment

Please tell us:

  • if there’s a specific doctor, nurse or other health professional you would prefer to respond
  • if you would prefer to consult with the doctor or nurse by phone, face-to-face, by video call or by text or email
  • if you need an interpreter
  • if you have any other access or communication needs

Home visits

If you are housebound and need an appointment, we will do a home visit. We will phone you first to understand what you need.

If you need a home visit please ring before 10am. You should have received a copy of the NEHA booklet ‘Before you Phone the Doctor’, which is very instructive.

Home Visit Guidelines

GP/Paramedic/Nurse Practitioner Visit Recommended

Home Visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving a medical opinion in cases involving:

  • the terminally ill
  • the truly bed-bound patient for whom travel to the surgery by car would cause deterioration in their medical condition or unacceptable discomfort.

GP/Paramedic/Nurse Practitioner Visit may be useful

After initial assessment over the telephone a seriously ill patient may be helped by a clinician’s attendance to prepare them to travel to hospital – that is, where other commitments do not prevent him/her from arriving before an ambulance.

Examples of such situations are:

  • myocardial infarction (heart attack)
  • severe shortness of breath
  • severe haemorrhage (bleeding).

It is understood that if a GP is about to embark on a booked surgery of twenty-five patients and is told that one of his/her patients is suffering from symptoms suggesting a heart attack, the sensible approach may well be to call an emergency paramedical ambulance rather than attending.

Home visit is not usual

In most of these cases, to visit would not be an appropriate use a clinician’s time.

  • Common symptoms, such as childhood fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are usually well enough to travel by car. It is not necessarily harmful to take a child with a fever outside. These children may not be fit to travel by bus or to walk, but car transport is available from friends, relatives or taxis. It is not a doctors job to arrange such transport. 
  • Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, back pain and abdominal pain are also easily transportable by car to a doctors premises. 
  • Common problems in the elderly, such as, poor mobility, joint pain and general malaise, would best be treated by a consultation at a doctors premises. The exception to this would be the truly bed-bound patient. If in doubt ask to speak to the doctor.