Appointments

Routine 15 minute appointments are available every day in the morning and afternoon and may be made by telephone or personally at the reception desk.  Please do not email the surgery with any clinical information, unless pre arranged by GP at an appointment.

There is an early morning surgery on a Monday morning, with appointments available between 0730 - 0800.  These are generally for patients who are unable to attend normal working hours.

Medical emergency appointments are also available in the morning and afternoon. If you feel your condition is serious and you need to be seen urgently please tell the receptionist who will speak to a doctor.

If you have not been seen at the surgery for 3 years (or 1 year for those over 75) you can request a check up appointment if you wish with the Practice Nurse. 

Cancellations

If you cannot attend an appointment for any reason please inform us as soon as possible in order for us to give the slot to someone else.

Home Visits

Whilst we encourage our patients to come to the surgery, where we have the proper equipment and facilities available, we do appreciate this is not always possible. In this respect, if you do need a home visit, you can help us by calling reception before 10:00.

You may only request a home visit if you are housebound or are too ill to visit the practice. Your GP will only visit you at home if they think that your medical condition requires it and will also decide how urgently a visit is needed. Please bear this in mind and be prepared to provide suitable details to enable the doctor to schedule house calls. It may be that your problem can be dealt with by telphone advice. Alternatively it may be more appropriate to send a nurse or arrange a hospital attendance.

Please remember that several patients can be seen in the Practice in the time it takes to make one home visit.

Sickness Certificates

You do not require a doctor's sickness certificate for any illness lasting seven days or less. Your employer may however require you to complete a self-certification form (SC2) which is available from your employer or on the HMRC website.

Evidence that you are sick

If you are sick for more than seven days, your employer can ask you to give them some form of medical evidence to support payment of SSP (statutory sick pay).

It is up to your employer to decide whether you are incapable of work. A medical certificate, now called a 'Statement of Fitness for Work’ (see below) from your doctor is strong evidence that you are sick and would normally be accepted, unless there is evidence to prove otherwise.

You could also provide evidence from someone who is not a medical practitioner, e.g. a dentist. Your employer will decide whether or not this evidence is acceptable. If your employer has any doubts, they may still ask for a medical certificate from your GP.

Statement of Fitness for Work - ’Fit Note'

The 'fit note' was introduced on 6 April 2010. With your employer's support, the note will help you return to work sooner by providing more information about the effects of your illness or injury.

For more information see the DirectGov website (where this information was sourced)

Medical Students

Medical students and nursing students attend the practice from time to time. We hope that you will co-operate with us and help the students to learn about general practice. However, you will be informed of their presence in advance, and if you do not want them to be present at a consultation, your wishes will be respected.

This will not affect your treatment in any way

Guide to Patient Access

• Repeat Prescription Requets

• Missuse of the Service

• Technical Support

• Feedback

• Children

Repeat Prescription Requests

Once logged in, you will be able to view a list of your "repeat medications".  You can see when they were last ordered, and view information about your current dosage.  You can select from the available medications and order another supply.

This request will be processed within 2 working days. You will be able to see when the request has been processed and accepted by logging back in.

There is also a section which allows you to send us a message about the request e.g. "ordering early as going on holiday". If we need to clarify anything about your prescription request, or reply to your comment you will be able to see this by logging back in.  Unfortunately, the system does not enable us to send an email reply.

Some medications such as antidepressants, strong painkillers, etc are not prescribed as a "repeat" even though you may take them regularly.  You can order these "special requests" using the message section, but only if ordering repeat medication at the same time.  This is due to a limitation of the computer software, and may be improved in time, but until then it may be easier to order “special request medication” by telephone.

Misuse of the service

We reserve the right to discontinue or restrict access to the service where we feel that the service is being misused either intentionally or due to a lack of understanding.

Technical Support

The patient access website has a variety of resources such as a "help" section and "frequently asked questions".

Unfortunately, our staff have no specialist website training and are unable to offer technical support.

Feedback

We are pleased to receive constructive feedback, Please use the comments and feedback page on the website.

Children

You may register your children for online prescriptions and appointment booking.  They will need their own account.

In order to maintain confidentiality, we will de-activate online access at or around their 16th birthday. They should then contact us directly if they wish to re-register.