You can help us by:
• being on time for your appointment
• letting us know if you need to cancel your appointment to allow it to be offered to another patient.
• calling for a home visit or urgent appointment before 10:00am
The patient has the right to request to see a practitioner of their choice and as far as possible the practice will endeavour to fulfil the request.
However, for acute illness (book-on-the-day appointments) the patient will be expected to accept an appointment with a practitioner covering the duty on that day.
For routine appointments the patient can request which practitioner they would like to see at the time of booking the appointment.
Practitioners are allocated time slots for each individual problem to be dealt with.
When you book an appointment please specify if more than one problem is to be dealt with so that the receptionist can allocate an appropriate time slot.
Some patient problems are linked and we do not want to dissuade patients from offering medical information.
However, if you have several, separate issues to discuss with a clinician, the clinician may ask you to arrange another appointment due to time limitations.
Missed Appointments
Due to the number of patients failing to attend for their appointment this could mean that you may not be able to see the doctor on the day that you wish to.
In an attempt to try and resolve this, the practice has developed the following policy:
• If you fail to attend appointments without informing us, we will write to you asking if there are any specific problems preventing you from letting us know.
• If you repeatedly fail to attend for appointments, you may be removed from the practice list and have to find an alternative GP.
This policy has been brought in because of the rise in DNA’s for pre-bookable appointments, and has been approved by the Patient Participation Group.
Zero tolerance
We strongly support the NHS policy on zero tolerance towards violence against health care workers. Anyone attending the surgery who abuses the GPs, staff or other patients (whether verbally, physically or in any other threatening manner), will risk removal from the practice list. In extreme cases we may contact the police to request removal of an offender from the practice premises.
