The Hill Surgery – 01424 755355

Appointments

Appointments requested at the surgery are for a wide range of patient issues, everything from a minor query about a regular medication request to cancer care.

Appointments are allocated on the basis of clinical need, not individual want.

In order to provide sufficient access, all GP appointments will be managed by telephone first. There will be no directly bookable face to face GP access, unless reviewed and triaged by telephone first. Nurse appointments are available to book in advance by telephone.

Clinicians will call patients with a maximum of TWO attempts. If you miss both attempted callbacks from the surgery, you will need to try again the following working day. Please ensure the surgery has your correct telephone number.

We have telephone and/or digital access for advice, ( via Engage-Consult). Home visit requests will be triaged in the same way, and will obviously occur where clinically required for patient care. All Care Homes now have facilities to access our care in several different remote ways, and their care has already been transformed.

We recognise that there will be the occasional unusual situation, where a patient has no form of telephone or internet access. If this ( fortunately rare) situation occurs, then please do communicate with the senior administration team at the surgery, via your current method – we will endeavour to find a mutually acceptable way to facilitate care in this situation. There is access to interpreting services, including sign language – these may need to be booked in advance.

If you are offered a face-to-face appointment, please arrive at the surgery in plenty of time.

Online Booking

Online appointment booking is now available, subject to availability, through the NHS App / Patient Access portals. Please ensure you are booking for a problem which is appropriate for our Nurse Practitioners to deal with. If you are unsure that this is a problem they are able to help with, please ring our reception team to check first. You must enter the reason for your appointment; please note that if this booking is inappropriate or you do not complete the reason for the booking, we will be contacting you to reschedule this with a more appropriate clinician.

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 10:00am. Please do not use the online consultation service to request visits.

You may only request a home visit if you are housebound or are too ill to visit the practice. A clinician 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

You can also be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.

Extended Access

Please be aware that we have extended access appointments. This means that we offer evening and weekend face to face appointments subject to availability.

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. Due to an increase in the number of wasted appointments through patients failing to attend without informing the surgery it has become necessary to implement the following policy:

If you fail to attend for 3 appointments with a doctor or a nurse you may be removed from the practice list and be requested to find an alternative practice.

 

Date published: 2nd February, 2022
Date last updated: 13th March, 2024