SEEING THE DOCTOR

Cancellations – it is essential that you telephone reception if you cannot keep your appointment. Even at short notice, we can usually allocate your appointment to someone else.

Appointments are for ten minutes although some patients’ problems take longer than others, so please be patient if there is some delay. If you feel you will need a longer appointment than usual, please let the receptionist know and we will try to make provision for this.

---

URGENT APPOINTMENTS

 If you have an urgent problem, although you will be able to see a Doctor/Nurse the same day, it will be the first Doctor/Nurse available and may not be your usual clinician. An urgent appointment is only to deal with the immediate problem. Please do not bring up other unrelated problems during this appointment. The receptionist will ask you for some brief details about the complaint as sometimes the Doctor/Nurse may decide your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice.

HOME VISITS

Please do not ask the Doctor to make a home visit if you are well enough to come to the surgery. When requesting a home visit you should give a complete description of the patient’s condition so that the Doctor can judge if a home visit is necessary.

Please remember when requesting a home visit to give the patient’s full name, date of birth, contact telephone number and address of where the patient is at when requesting the visit.

Other than in cases of extreme emergency, all requests for home visits should be made by telephoning (028) 87 722137 before 11.00am. The receptionist will ask a few details to allow the Doctor to assess the urgency of your call and help you in the most appropriate way.

Please remember that several patients can be seen at the surgery in the time it takes to make a home visit.

TEST RESULTS

 The Practice Nurses or Phlebotomist will advise you as to when you should contact reception to obtain your test results for investigations carried out in the surgery.

For confidentiality, information will not be given to another person regarding your results unless we have your signed consent to do so.

The Practice will notify you should your results from investigations carried out in the surgery be abnormal. The Practice routinely notifies all patients regarding their cervical cytology results.

TELEPHONE ADVICE

If you require to speak to a GP during the working day, you should telephone the GP on 02887723000 at the dedicated phone call times as outlined below:

• Dr Thompson        - 2.15 p.m - 2.45 p.m (Tuesdays)
• Dr Church             - 2.15 p.m - 2.45 p.m (Wednesdays)
• Dr Sands              - 2.15 p.m - 2.45 p.m (Thursdays)
• Dr Paisley             - 2.15 p.m - 2.45 p.m (Fridays)

In the event of a patient needing to speak to a GP when a Doctor is on leave, your call will be directed to the duty Doctor on call for that day if it is an emergency. Please remember that these are dedicated phone call times. Please be patient as there can be a high volume of calls during dedicated phone call times. In the event of your needing to speak to the Practice Nurses during the working day, you may contact them at the times outlined below:

 Monday to Friday 12.30 p.m– 1.00p.m or 4.00pm – 4.30pm.

Please note at other times GPs/Practice Nurses may be busy. For this reason staff have been asked not to disturb consultations with non urgent telephone calls.