Appointments
Some consultations can be carried out by a doctor over the phone. The Doctor or Nurse will then advise on the best course of treatment - If the Doctor or Nurse decides the patient’s problem needs to be dealt with face to face they will book an appointment. All appointments are of 10 minute duration.
A selection of face to face appointments are available but not on a specific guaranteed day. Subject to availability - these can be booked on line and up to 1 week in advance.
Appointments for the nurse and all other clinics can be booked in advance and are available online.
Please Note: If you cannot attend please cancel as soon as possible so that the appointment can be offered to another person.
Urgent cases will be seen as soon as possible and will take priority.
Home Visits can be requested and the Doctor will asses the appropriate course of care.
Please be considerate if someone else needs to be given emergency priority or if the doctor is running late. We do our best to keep to appointment times but this is not always possible.
Our GPs are aware that some patients are finding it increasingly difficult to get the appointments and services they need from us, and feel you should be made aware of the reasons.
Over the past few years, successive governments have reduced the investment in General Practice from around 10% of the NHS budget to nearer 7%.
In spite of this reduction in funding we still provide 90% of consultations carried out in the NHS. There is access to GP services 24 hours, 7 days a week, and the demand to see GPs is rising dramatically. There are currently 340 million GP consultations a year, an increase of 40 million in the last 5 years.
This has not been matched by an increase in GP and staff numbers or an expansion in the infrastructure. Added to this we are expected to take on more and more work previously carried out in hospitals, and are obliged to attend meetings with the Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS England management and spend hours preparing for and meeting the Care Quality Commission. All of these mean less time to see our patients.
In addition, we are faced with huge difficulties in recruiting new doctors and nurses to work in General Practice. Currently there is a shortfall of about 10,000 GPs across the country. It is impossible to see how this shortfall can be addressed when it takes a minimum of 10 years to train a GP. In short General Practice is in crisis.
We simply want you to know that we are aware of the problems you have accessing some services and that we are working as hard as we can to provide those services. We hope you will bear with us as we strive to continue to provide quality General Practice in this.
Specialist & Hospital Care
If a GP or another member of our health care team believes you need hospital treatment or specialist care elsewhere, they will ask you where and when you would like to go. They can usually then initiate the referral process electronically while you wait although this system is not yet available for all services.
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.