Please visit our Consulting Room for details on how to book an appointment.

All consultations with doctors and practice nurses between Monday and Friday are by appointment only, and are available from 08:30-18:00. As many consultations are clinic-based, it would be helpful if patients could give an indication of their appointment needs to the receptionist.

For non-urgent matters it is important that we offer continuity of care, therefore please book with your usual clinician where possible. The wait for a routing appointment may be up to four weeks (a bit longer if you clinician is on leave) therefore please allow for this when booking.

If you have difficulty hearing, please let the receptionist know when you arrive for your appointment.

Pre-booked appointments

Patients are normally seen at pre-booked appointments for one person only. Most GP and nurse appointments are for 10 minutes, and are generally for one problem. If you wish to discuss more complex matters and feel you may need additional time, please speak to the receptionist when you book.

Evening appointments

Evening GP appointments beyond 18:30 are available on a Monday and Wednesday. These sessions must be booked 48 hours beforehand.

Please Note: Other surgery services are not available during these extended hours.

You may find it easier to register to use our Online Services in future (you will need a user name and password).

Urgent Appointments

These are classified as medically urgent problems which need to be dealt with that day. These are arranged by calling the practice on 01353 663434. Your request will be passed to the Triage Clinician who will call you back as soon as possible.

They will arrange the most appropriate course of action, which may or may not be an appointment on the day. You may be advised to attend the Minor Injuries Unit (MIU), A&E, or to call 999.

Alternatively, a visit from the district nurse or JET (Joint Emergency Team) may be appropriate.

If you have not heard within two hours, please call back. We will be phoning from an anonymised number for reasons of confidentiality.

Health Care Assistant appointments

All our HCAs are trained to take:

• blood samples
• blood pressure checks
• ECGs
• NHS health checks
• vitamin B12 injections
• flu vaccinations

Each of our HCA’s have undertaken further training for this. The Patient Services Team can advise when booking by phone or visiting, but when booking online please book with the appropriately-trained HCA:

• Ear irrigation – Charlotte and Felicity
• Spirometry – Felicity and Natasha
• Suture and clip removal – Tara
• Warfarin monitoring – Charlotte, Lisa, Natasha and Tara

HCA appointments are usually seven or 20 minutes, and again please give sufficient information to the Patient Services Team so you get the appropriate time slot.

Please book a seven-minute appointment for blood tests, blood pressure checks and B12 injections. You will need a double appointment for a blood test and a blood pressure check.

Please book a 20 minute appointment for:

• NHS health check
• ECG
• ear irrigation
• suture removal
• spirometry

Extended Hours Appointments

These are offered on a Monday or Wednesday, from 18:30 to 19:30, and are pre-bookable only. We do not offer a full range of services in these hours – these appointments are for routine issues only.

How to book:

• Via Online Services (you will need a user name and password)
• Calling the practice on 01353 663434
• Visiting during our opening hours:

Access on a Monday evening is via the two main surgery doors (car park and St Mary’s Street entrance).

Access on a Wednesday evening is via the staff side door entrance on the surgery driveway.

Telephone Triage System

Due to increasing pressure on appointments, we have reviewed how we might more effectively manage the demand. As a result, we now triage by telephone all requests for home visits and urgent / same-day appointments.

Did Not Attend (DNA) Appointments

Unfortunately, many appointments are lost every week when patients fail to turn up. It would considerably ease the difficulty if cancellations were phoned in to the appointments desk at the earliest opportunity so that the appointment can be used by someone else. At times, individual consultations over-run the allocated time, causing delays in subsequent appointments; patients are requested to be understanding of this problem.